Snowed Out
by Ihsan997
Summary: A group of young adventurers shacks up in a Winterspring huntress lodge during a blizzard. Drama and passion ensue...that is, until they realize that they have sole uninvited guests lurking in the woods. 20 chapters
1. Corrianna 1

**A/N: hello dear readers! Welcome to a winter blowout story where many of my younger OCs - the new generation born from my original set of older characters - deal with hormones, holidays and horror in a mountain ski lodge. For reference, you do NOT need to read any of my other stories for this one to make sense; all context will either be given in the paragraph below this one or in the narrative of the story itself.**

 **This takes place in the year 66 on the Warcraft timeline. For perspective, the Warlords of Draenor expansion took place in the year 31 according to most versions of the timeline; this is Azeroth over three decades in the future, where the conflicts of the current game are just blips in the history books. Different chapters are told from different points of view, which I hope will be apparent in the opening lines.**

 **Enjoy!**

Corrianna hugged herself a little more tightly, huddling close to Uniol as the two of them waited at the flight point. Ashenvale became a little bit cold during the winter, and even the Barrens could get chilly at night, but neither were comparable to Winterspring. Her mittens kept her fingers warm, but her long ears poked out of the two slits in her hood, chilling the tips as well as her nose. Snow had only recently stopped falling, and according to the local druid assigned to the city of New Kel'Theril, more would start to fall as the evening approached.

And it was still technically summer.

Uniol put his arm around her, holding her a little closer as the two of them waited for the first wave of guests. His warmth was incredible, though she suspected that part of it was all in her head; when the two newlyweds stood next to each other, she felt like she could melt. Though he hadn't quite passed his druidic trials yet, he still had that sort of soothing voice that was simply relaxing to listen to. Though she also wasn't a full fledged archer, she liked to think that her voice bore that light, focused tone she heard from her mother. Both of them were quite young for elves (or a half elf, in her case) and weren't in a hurry to rush off and hone their classes yet. But it was still nice to take the nice, slow journey together.

A strand of dark, dark brown hair that looked more or less black fell from inside her hood, and she spent a few seconds trying to adjust it with hampered hands inside of mittens before he spoke.

"There they are, that Sindorei couple that your cousin knows," Uniol said while pointing toward two people riding on one hippogriff up in the sky. "What are their names again?"

Corrianna tried to remember what Navarion, one of her six cousins, had told her when they'd split up in Ashenvale. "Henaia and...Thelios, I think he said. I don't know them, but I think they're sort of... _his_ type of people." She frowned a bit, remembering the last time Navarion had introduced the family to the people he met while working at mercenary camps on dangerous quests.

"Perhaps these folks are a bit more...relaxed," he replied as the hippogriff began to land on the flight deck.

"Perhaps...I hope he's hanging out with better people." The blood elf couple landed, laughing wildly as the male hugged around the female's waist. The flightmistress helped them dismount, tilting her head in confusion at the open displays of affection from two elves, regardless of whether their eyes were silver or green. "You know, when we were kids it wouldn't have been possible for blood elves to travel in night elf territory so easily," she remarked, almost admiring the way that the other couple at least behaved politely with everyone around them.

The two of them tried to ask the flightmistress a question while pointing toward the hippogriff roost, energetic despite the fact that the Kaldorei woman seemed rather annoyed by their refusal to vacate her flight deck right away.

"They seem like...oh my," Uniol gasped as the two of them tongue kissed in public after jumping off the flight deck and nearly dropping all their luggage. "They certainly seem like...friendly people."

The blood elf female tried to ride in the male's back while he dragged their bags behind them, only for him to slip and fall in the snow next to the platform. They rolled around for a bit, touching each other a bit more than was necessary as they helped each other up. Having been raised in a family almost as conservative as her husband's, Corrianna balked at the odd public behavior.

Awkward and unsure of how to react, she ended up just waiting for the blonde haired couple to notice them first. "Hey, are you Corra?" the female asked, waving with both hands and still laughing from her snowy romp with her guy friend. "I'm Henaia, your cousin told me all about you!"

Shy from the possibility of the male blood elf trying to shake her hand, Corrianna dragged Uniol forward with her, trying to keep herself aligned with Henaia. "Yes, Navarion gushed about you guys, too." She leaned forward to bow, only to receive a mock kiss on both cheeks from Henaia that felt very fake. "Uh...so you two just flew in from Mor'shan?" she asked as the two men engaged in what appeared to be an overly complicated handshake and shoulder bump combination that Uniol didn't quite know how to do.

Fortunately for Corrianna, the male had eyes for no one but Henaia, and barely even noticed her as he spoke. "Indeed; it was one abortion of a flight, let me tell you," Thelios chortled while trying to peek down the front of Henaia's unbuttoned coat. "The hippogriff wouldn't shut up, either."

Corrianna pursed her lips into a straight line as she glanced at the visibly upset flying mount, its feathers ruffled in a pitiful display as the flightmistress tried to calm it down.

"Yes,vwell. Hopefully we'll all be able to relax for a bit," Uniol said as he picked up both his luggage and Corrianna's. "My mother has reserved the lodge especially for all of us for the weekend, so I'm expecting everybody to unwind a bit."

Following suit and lifting their bags, Thelios began to walk side by side with Uniol, thankfully letting Corrianna slip behind them. Henaia continuously bumped into her as they all followed the beaten trail in the snow leading to the large hills overlooking the reclaimed Highborne ruins that the Sentinel government had transformed into a modern Kaldorei resort town.

"Yeah, Navarion mentioned that your mom is like some bigshot brigadier general among the night elves. Is that true, Uniol?" Henaia asked, her voice loud and grating in an unintentional way that made it impossible to blame her (though not to find her annoying already).

The party of four slowly made their way through the upscale town defined by the numerous, post Sundering style of wooden night elf cabins. Unlike cities in warmer regions, there were no hollowed out trees being used as dwellings due to the thinner trunks at such an altitude.

Uniol pointed toward an uphill path to direct them as they walked and talked. "Retired, to be exact. My mom was born before immortality, like Corrianna and Navarion's mothers, so she's getting up there in years. But we were always established in Winterspring, so the current military command seek her advice all the time."

"And she totally has access to all of these resort lodges and stuff?" Henaia asked bluntly. The eagerness in which she switched the topic from Uniol's family to the material comforts of his family's property bothered Corrianna deeply, but she remained quiet.

"Well, yes, a few. Most sentinel lodges are used for active military personnel only, but there are the few rare ones used for rehabilitation after injuries or rewards for unused vacation days. My mom helped establish the latter at a wellspring above town here, so she can claim it periodically-"

"Oh, it's like a timeshare!"

Corrianna pressed her molar teeth together at Henaia's over enthusiasm. "Sentinels in need of rest will never be denied quarter here; Uniol's mother was generous enough to grant us access for a weekend when there were no wounded servicewomen in the area."

Suddenly contrite like a hyperactive child, Henaia seemed to comprehend Corrianna's stiff reaction. "Aww, your mom sounds like a great lady! I can make really cool origami dragonhawks, maybe I can send her one if she's around!" the Sindorei woman chirped like a real dragonhawk.

"I'm sure she'd love to see that! Mother doesn't do origami herself, but she quite enjoys seeing it done." Uniol slowed down as they reached the first level of the high hills where the path evened out. They had a great view of the frozen lake below and the resort town around it; they were so high that a few hippogriffs ridden by tourists passed by at the same level as the ledge they were standing on. "Before we go up to the lodge, we need to stop to see the groundskeeper. He should have stocked everything in the lodge for us, but it's always courteous to double check. He lives alone."

"Sounds like a crazy old hermit in the woods," Thelios remarked casually, not even noticing when Corrianna's brows furrowed angrily. She had no idea who the groundskeeper was - this was actually the first time she'd see Uniol's family lodge despite the great length of time that they'd been together - but she found it rather rude that Thelios would make a rude comment about a person he didn't even know.

If Uniol was also offended, he didn't show it directly. "Well, Mister Montanha enjoys his privacy, you could say."

"That's a weird name!" Henaia replied, pushing Corrianna to the edge of irritation.

"It's obviously Taurahe," she said as curtly as she could without crossing the line over to rudeness herself.

"Yes, he's a tauren, but he's been in the region for a very long time. He doesn't talk much, but he's the most incredible healer my family has ever seen; it's said that he can cure cancer."

"No way!" Thelios replied. He couldn't have appeared more stupefied if he'd been tucking a surfboard beneath his arm and watching an awesome wave approach.

"I kid you not; people come from all over to see him, but he insists on living alone on the other side of this mountain. He maintains the lodge and runs errands for the sentinels if they're here, but otherwise doesn't like being bothered."

"Maybe he's like the crazy old wise man on the mountain?" Henaia surmised out loud. "Like, he totally makes people run weird quests with reagants from other continents so he can cure their cancer."

"He might just enjoy being alone," Corrianna huffed, though her version of being upset was so low key that neither of the blood elves seemed to notice.

"Hey, I see it!" Thelios beamed, pointing with his entire arm and leaning his entire body over as of striking a pose for Henaia.

The discussion had annoyed Corrianna so much that she hadn't even noticed how far they'd walked. They'd actually looped around the small mountain (or large hill) on a beaten, circular path ringing it, and found themselves next to a distinctly tauren style cabin overlooking the jagged, unnavigable valley on the other side. Thin pine trees provided a measure of cover, though the totems set up outside unmistakeably marked the dwelling of a tauren spirit walker.

"The totems have been lighted, so he's inside. Let me just get him; there might be news we need to be filled in on." Uniol left the rest of them standing by the high totems with small fires burning at the tops but not burning the wood. "Mister Montanha!" he said while knocking on the door lightly. "It's Uniol, I'm here with the first wave of guests! Are you awake?"

Corrianna relaxed even as Henaia insisted on leaning against her for balance and Thelios inexplicably insisted on leaning against Henaia. At least they were about to meet a person who Corrianna expected she would like. Her image of tauren in general was a rather positive one: large, bovine nature worshippers with similar beliefs to those she'd been raised with. There were always exceptions to the rule, but all of her personal experiences had been positive. Ideas over what the spirit walker who gifted cancer patients with a second chance on life would be like floated around her mind, causing her to wonder just how exactly the mystery man would lighten everybody's mood.

Would he be big and heavy set and tower over everybody like a giant, furry grandfather?

Would he give everyone wise words and inspire them with his insights on the environment?

Would he invoke the ancestors to watch over them during their stay so that the forecasted snowstorm wouldn't chill them to much?

Or would he turn out to be an uncouth, temperamental old coot with a bad attitude?

 _"I heard you the first time you knocked, now_ _ **wait a minute**_!"

Speaking Common with fluent diction but a noticeable accent on pronunciation, Mister Montanha sounded as if he'd learned the language perfectly but didn't care about how he sounded to other people. How apt, considering the fact that he yelled so loud that all four of them jumped. Hooves clopped inside, and two separate voices spoke in hushed tones as cloth was dragged across the floor inside. Uniol stepped back from the door just as the rare white furred tauren stepped outside, a shy pandaren woman in a parka hiding behind him.

Mister Montanha was short for a tauren, probably shorter than Corrianna's cousin Navarion, and not in great shape. He was a whole heap of mean, however, and didn't seem to take issue with glaring at the son of his boss. "Now I'm ready to go unlock everything," the audacious healer said without a hint of shyness over his outburst.

Uniol looked toward the pandaren woman in confusion, though she didn't move from behind the white furred tauren. "Oh...kay then, Mister Montanha. The rest of the guests will be here shortly, but we wouldn't mind going to set up and relax for a bit as well. I trust everything has been stocked?"

Without even motioning for them all to follow him, the spirit walker began to walk toward a second path leading further up the mountain. "Yes, I took inventory again this morning. There wasn't enough toilet paper after the last group there brought that dreadful goblin cook, but I ran back to town to have the druid down there conjure some extra soft vine leaves."

Seeing her opportunity to avoid her cousin's irritating friends, Corrianna speed walked forward, joining her new husband and the lodge groundskeeper as the three other people formed a second row behind them. In retrospect it was a cruel punishment to the poor parka preferring pandaren, but her act was one of desperation. They'd just arrived and she already found herself becoming annoyed; she didn't want anything to ruin what was technically a way to make up for her and Uniol's botched honeymoon the year before (screw all hotels with that horrid, copper tubed system that the gnomes called indoor plumbing; conjured Kaldorei cisterns and water fountains were the way to go).

Holding on to his hand as the tauren rambled about inventory and the blood elves assumed the pandaren was also a guest, Corrianna took a deep breath and tried to look on the bright side. She'd never seen Uniol's family lodge before, and her mother in law - who'd actually tried to prevent their wedding from happening at one point - had begrudgingly warmed up to her so much that the woman had invited Corrianna's cousins and friends to spend the weekend there as well. It was a fun trip without all the burdens of a world of crafted war.

What could possibly go wrong?


	2. Corrianna 2

**A/N: still Corrianna's perspective here.**

If there's one thing Corrianna learned while they scaled that small mountain (definitely not a large hill), it was that the environs of New Kel'Theril were absolutely _huge_.

From the town below, the distance from the base of the mountain up to the second flat level where Mister Montanha's cabin was located had looked like the greater distance. Once they'd passed that level, however, she found the rest of the walk to feel much longer. Toward the surprisingly flat summit, the trail forked twice, wound around the mountain a few more times and even dipped in between some crevices and miniature woodlands. She understood why the sentinels preferred to use that place when seeking rest and relaxation: as a normal lodge for patrolwoman, it would be useless due to its remote location, and that quality was exactly what made it a great recreation spot. They passed more than one sentinel facility in their way up, though aside from the single armory that was locked up, all of those facilities were solely recreational.

Only when the group passed their third sitting gazebo did Corrianna finally decide to speak up.

"Uniol, this really isn't a normal huntress lodge, is it?" she asked once he and the tauren had fallen into an amiable silence.

He smiled warmly, tilting his head down as if remembering family holidays past. "I almost wouldn't even call it a huntress lodge; nobody did any hunting or patrolling up here. Basically if they could get in the good graces of mom, then they were granted the right to stay here on rotation for a few years at a time. Now that immortality is over, nobody stays more than a few weeks, but this place is still the envy of all other proper lodges in the region. This is basically the reward for hard work."

Though he might have continued gushing had he been able to, the laughter from the trio behind them cut everyone else off.

"And so then he said, 'you can't tell me about my own pet monkey! I trust it to wash the dishes, so of course I trust it to do the laundry!" Henaia laughed hysterically, nearly doubling over in laughter as Thelios followed suit.

"Sounds like he had a major malfunction in his own trophy machine!" the male blood elf laughed back, red in the face as the pandaren just stared at the snow in front of her feet.

 _What on Azeroth does that even mean_ , Corrianna thought to herself.

Fortunately, she didn't have to speculate about the bizarre, decontextualized conversation for long. The last bit of the uphill trail evened out as they reached what wasn't quite the summit of the mountain, but was an unbelievably wide, flat level below it. The lodge, accordingly, was the largest she'd ever seen.

"Here it is," Uniol sighed happily.

Henaia immediately sprinted ahead of the group, running halfway toward the enormous, three story lodge before she stopped. "Oh wow! Sizzling sunbeams, this place is amazing!" she chirped before doing a few cartwheels in the snow.

Not to be outdone in the silliness factor, Thelios promptly flopped himself down next to her and began making upside down snow angels. He sounded like he was saying something, though it was inaudible since he had a face full of snow like a big kid.

Corrianna squeezed Uniol's hand even more tightly, whistling as she took in the whole scene. Authentic Kaldorei architecture arced toward the sky, joined by more of the tall, thin pine trees which seemed to grow even on the top of a small mountain. Unlike the huntress lodges of Ashenvale which were open air and featured railings at the sides, this one featured actual walls - likely due to the fact that the winter air could become quite cold at night. Every square inch had been intricately grown by priestesses praying in tandem with druids, leaving the entire face of each floor carved and unique from every other lodge on the planet. The width of the structure was even greater than the height, and Corrianna wondered just what they used all that space for.

"I love your mom so much," Corrianna gasped, still a little awestruck; she was used to seeing huge buildings among the humans or blood elves, but not her mother's race. "Really, I need to thank her so much when we see her again. She's really doing us a great service by letting my bring my family and friends here."

"I think she feels bad about how heavily she criticized you in the months before the wedding," he replied softly, ignoring the two idiotically frolicking Sindorei. "Mom doesn't know the word 'sorry,' so this is typical of her way."

"This way is good enough. I almost feel embarrassed-"

"So anyway, if you're all done here..." Mister Montanha said, letting his voice trail off in a very blunt, obvious manner.

The couple turned around to find the tauren already backing away, impatient and exasperated even though he'd done most of the talking on the way up himself. His pandaren lady friend still looked quiet and preoccupied, and Corrianna almost felt bad for keeping them.

"I think we have everything we need, don't we?" she asked her husband in a very obvious way.

Uniol probably didn't need the hint, and didn't hesitate. "Of course, if inventory has already been taken. Mister Montanha, thank you so much for all the help."

"You're welcome," the white tauren replied before bowing and walking back down the path. His pandaren companion just folded her arms and walked beside him, leaving a few inches of space in between until they disappeared from view.

Once the two of them were alone (Henaia and Thelios looked like they were in their own immature little world as they pelted each other with snowballs), they began to walk up toward the steps that lead to the front door. Inside, Corrianna openly gasped again at the central atrium that Rose all the way up to the ceiling of the third floor.

"This...this is too much," she giggled, no longer able to contain herself. "I'm almost afraid to...everything just looks so nice." She eyed a shoe rack with a number of ancient highborne statuettes lining the top, most of them abstract.

"This is meant to be a place of healing and rest. Though to be honest, with twelve of us total it won't exactly be empty. A lot of the rooms you see here aren't bedrooms. Take a look up there."

He motioned toward the three separate ramps leading to the second and third floors, all of them twisting and intertwining in fascinating ways. "On the second floor we have some bedrooms but also the library and study on one side, and the game room on the other. The showers are here in the first floor as is the kitchen. Laundry and the armory are in the basement."

The two of them walked forward to a circle of comfortable looking cushions in the atrium, setting their luggage down before they even bothered to put it anywhere. Seeing as how they were indoors and it technically was a night elf lodge, Corrianna began trying to kick her boots off before Uniol knelt down to remove them for her.

"Let me."

"Uniol, don't!" she protested weakly, though she didn't resist. The act was actually flattering, though she would have been a bit shy to let others see it; both of them were rather reserved people. Fortunately, the less reserved elven couple didn't stumble through the front door until after both she and Uniol were in their socks.

"Whoa! Holy shit!" Thelios laughed while looking everywhere like a child. "This place is like Light's Hope Chapel!"

"Helloooo!" Henaia bellowed up toward the ceiling. After twirling around a few times, she promptly tripped over one of the cushions and fell down onto it. "Uniol, your mom rocks!"

He smiled as he watched the Sindorei couple beam at his family lodge, and Corrianna could tell that he was considerably less irritated at their behavior than she was. "Thanks, she'll be glad to hear that you guys like it."

Corrianna moved to sit down, but noticed that the two men remained standing. Thelios suddenly looked a bit concerned. "Uh, guys, I chugged like an entire liter of lager before our last pit stop on the hippogriff. Where's the hole?"

Grimacing, Uniol hesitated momentarily before stepping forward. "In the back, past the kitchen. I'll show you since it's kind of hard to find. You two will watch the door, right?" he asked Corrianna before leaving.

"Don't worry, we'll be on the lookout for the rest of the guests," she replied, watching the two men disappear toward the back of the cavernous first floor. Once the two of them were alone, she found Henaia staring at her curiously.

"So are you like, half human or something?" the air headed blood elf asked.

 _Or something_? "That's correct; my mom is a night elf and my dad is human. Uniol, obviously, isn't mixed-"

"And what the hell is Navarion, anyway?"

Corrianna grit her teeth again. "Well, I would have assumed that you know since he's your friend, but my mom and his mom are sisters. His dad is a jungle troll-"

"What's that?"

"A troll, but from the jungle instead of the forest."

"So your cousins are trolls?" Henaia asked sincerely, honestly not seeming to get it.

It took every ounce of Corrianna's willpower not to slap the woman. "No. Listen. Four of my cousins are half troll, half elf; two of them are full blooded night elves because they're adopted," she tried to explain.

For a second, Henaia almost seemed to understand. She poked her tongue against her cheeks back and forth and appeared to count on her hand, destroying every stereotype of blood elves all being brainy magi. "So they're all like trolls?"

"What the f-"

The knock on the door prevented Corrianna, a volunteer at the temple of Elune with her mother at Astranaar, from breaking her goes against cuss words.

"Just open the door!" came the familiar voice of Selia, the girlfriend of one of Corrianna's cousins and a person she liked even less than Hanaia.

Tiondel's reply came back at her hard and fast. "What do you think I'm doing? Just be patient for two seconds." A second later and one of Corrianna's cousins who would actually be staying with them for the weekend entered in all his grumpy glory. His extremely short haircut and circular goatee clashed with his long ears, creating a look that led to most people remembering him rather easily; he had to be one of the few elves on all of Azeroth with short hair.

"Del!" Corrianna chirped as she leapt up out of the chair and ran to give him a hug. "We haven't seen you since the wedding, what's going on!"

Two more people filed inside after Selia entered behind him. "Oh, mostly in Stonetalon with Selia's family," he replied while nodding toward his girlfriend (who conveniently failed to say hello to Corrianna). Though he didn't press the issue due to bad blood between Selia and literally every single member of the family, he did motion for his two other companions to come over. "Corra, these are Selia's friends, Kirana-"

"Greetings," a night elf woman with her hair dyed bright red said while bowing to the group.

"Charmed!" Corrianna replied, happy to see someone who remained a little more reserved when meeting new people.

"-and Jalfaren."

A highborne youth with silver hair posed with his hands in his pockets, staring off to the side as if he were too tragically hip to make eye contact. "Hey," was what the word he mumbled roughly sounded like.

"Nice to meet you, too!" Corrianna told the silverhead in a robe. Already, she liked Selia's friends more than the actual woman herself, including the mumbly mage guy. "Everybody, this is Henaia - she's one of Navarion's friends!"

Already having bounced up next to everybody, Henaia proceeded to do her fake kissy greeting with the two night elf females, and then offered a daintily limp wrist to Jalfaren who tugged on it awkwardly. "Heneurithia Hephaestia Heatseeker at your service!" she absolutely said by mimicking the sound of a dragonhawk; the sound was uncanny. "Henaia for short!"

"Heatseeker, is it? I think I've heard of that family," Kirana replied, already warming up to the woman upon their first greeting.

Henaia's eyes lit up. "Oh, really? That's so cool, I think we're totally one of the original highborne families from Kalimdor!"

"No," Jalfaren mumbled to nobody in particular.

"And you're...Del? Corra's cousin?" Henaia asked, a perplexed expression on her face. "You don't look like a troll."

"Well, he certainly acts like one," Selia huffed while staring out the peephole in the door. Like most night elf buildings, there were no proper windows, thus keeping the place relatively dark save everyone's glowing eyes.

Obviously taking the higher road, Tiondel scowled for a moment before continuing, and Corrianna felt a twinge of protective anger for her family burn at her until the man spoke. "I was adopted, miss Heatseeker, but I'm a hundred percent my father's son," he replied, the very hint of a Zandali accent on his Common once again clashing with his appearance.

From the kitchen, a bellowing Sindorei voice reached the atrium, echoing regardless of Uniol's attempts to shush him from yelling. "Hey everybody, the moo moo guy left some snacks out for us already!" Thelios yelled across the entire first floor.

The camel's back all but broke under the straw as Corrianna's jaw dropped open. "That's racist-"

"Snacks!" Henaia cried while dragging Kirana along toward the kitchen despite literally having just met the woman. Jalfaren soon followed, his pricey silk robes flowing as if enchanted with an aesthetic breeze.

Tiondel dropped both his and his girlfriend's bags near the couch. "We've been flying for a while, Corra. I'm going to go splash some water on my face if you don't mind."

"Take your time; we're finally here, so there's no rush."

She watched him disappear toward the kitchen and waited for a few more seconds, considering whether or not to confront Selia right off the bat. The woman made no secret that she disliked Corrianna as well as Tiondel's sisters, and the feelings were mutual. But even if there was no chance of reconciliation, she at least wanted them to agree not to directly engage each other for the sake of the trip.

"Selia, listen...uh, hey?" she asked in confusion when she turned and realized that the woman was still staring out the peephole. "Hello-oo?"

After a few seconds, Selia finally turned away from the door and looked at Corrianna _without_ contempt for the first time ever. "Huh...yeah?"

Corrianna raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?" she asked, almost surprising herself by the question and who she was directing it to.

Shaking her head, Selia looked like she'd been watching something rather odd. "Nothing...I thought I saw something." Quickly regaining her composure, she finally shot that look of contempt again, ever familiar. "What do you want?"

The half elf returned the full elf's scowl tenfold. "Never mind, I-" She ended up stopping herself short when Selia literally just walked away when she was in mid sentence, following the rest of the group toward the kitchen and leaving Corrianna by herself near the front door.

For a little while she just watched her cousin's girlfriend walk away, wondering what on Azeroth such a great person could see in such a wretched creature. Once on her own, however, she realized that the kitchen had somehow become the new congregation area while the atrium had simply become the dropoff point for everybody's suitcases and duffel bags.

She tried to follow, but curiosity pricked at the back of her neck. Indulging herself briefly, she looked out the peephole of the door and saw nothing but snow angels and densely growing pine trees in front of the lodge. Shrugging it off, Corrianna turned tail and followed the others into the kitchen.


	3. Tiondel

**A/N: first point of view switch happens here; this is all Del.**

Tiondel looked up from the naturally enchanted wash basin, wiping away the weariness from travel as he looked himself over. The trip had been long, and the company difficult to deal with at times. Ironically, it was Selia who caused the most problems, while her two friends most often provided the solutions.

Truth be told, Kirana was possibly the easiest to be around; she was legitimately grateful to have been invited, likely due to the fact that she'd never been on a proper vacation before. Having been orphaned during one of the numerous factional wars in decades past, she grew up in the Stonetalon Mountains without privilege and thus found herself hoarding every last piece of copper that she earned. She wasn't a perfect new friend: she asked to borrow money a lot and had knowingly lied to him and Selia on at least one occasion that involved gambling. Regardless, she seemed like a pleasant person to interact with, and thus he didn't mind bringing her along.

Jalfaren was a different story. The child of two ancient highborne mages, he'd grown up in the opposite manner: pampered and always given what he wanted. He had been the only child for a good few decades until his much younger siblings were born, and the pressure began for him to actually learn to wield magic. Instead, he spent the money he borrowed from them mostly on ridiculous abstract art pieces and a stamp collection that was far too large for a grown man to be proud of. However, he was usually so subdued in his consistent mumbly complaining that his tendency to invite himself along to social outings (Tiondel couldn't remember how exactly he'd become a part of their social circle) was tolerable.

But Selia...that was another story. On more than one occasion, she'd told Tiondel that she didn't love him, but loved being with him...whatever that meant. The good times with her were beyond good; amazing, even. But the bad moments-

"Del always takes too long in the bathroom. I keep telling him to visit a healer and check of he has irritable bowel syndrome, but he never listens."

He grit his teeth while wiping his face off in the bathroom. When the two of them experienced their bad moments, they really were bad. At least this time she was only whining about him to people who wouldn't believe her.

The bathroom was at the end of a long hallway featuring a few other random doors, and it curved at least once before he reached the kitchen. How a night elf lodge - which typically featured few enclosed spaces and lots of wide, open rooms - could contain so many passageways was beyond him. Once he reached the large kitchen with multiple cupboards hanging from the ceiling, he found his girlfriend casually complaining about him to Kirana while doing her best to ignore his cousin, who was becoming more visibly irritated by the moment. Jalfaren just stood next to Uniol in a corner and pretended to admire a rack of highborne artifacts that looked exactly like all the others he probably owned.

"Sometimes healers don't tell the truth, you know?" Kirana said, eyeing Tiondel awkwardly in her peripheral vision. "I went to a healer one time and they told me I needed to buy a bunch of ragweed to cure my allergies. But then I realized ragweed causes allergies and I got scammed."

"I, for one, think it's nice when a man cares to go to the bathroom to freshen up for a bit. It shows that he cares about how he looks," Corrianna retorted, her arms folded defensively.

Selia, as always, didn't care for his family members, one of the many things that irritated him in the woman who also had a knack for making him the happiest man in the world when she felt like doing so. "It's always so frustrating when people won't take good intentioned advice. You try and you try and some people just won't listen."

"Sort of like when you try to advise somebody about their tendency to spend half their earnings on accessories in a single weekend?" he asked pointedly as he interjected into the conversation. "It's well meaning, by the way; nobody uses that phrase 'good intentioned' like an adjective."

Frowning angrily in reaction to his mention of her poor spending habits, Selia tried and failed to find a response before more loud knocking and really loud talking erupted from the front door.

"Who's that?" Kirana asked, losing all interest in what her supposed best friend was about to say. All attention seemed to be focused on the raucous laughter coming from just outside the main door.

Tiondel smiled and already started to walk back out into the atrium. "Shari," he chuckled, memories of his siblings on childhood vacations flashing through his memory.

Uniol joined him, leaving Jalfaren to criticize the artifacts being used as kitchen decorations by himself. "For someone who hates the spotlight, Shari sure is loud. Probably the loudest introvert ever."

Four voices chattered on the front porch, even distracting the two blood elves from their makeout session on a couch at the far end of the atrium. Before he and his...well, technically Uniol was his cousin in law (if that was a thing) reached the door, Tiondel could already hear the only three siblings of his who could make it for that trip as well as another in law.

Sharimara was the first inside, pushing the door open the moment Uniol opened it. Unlike Tiondel himself, who was adopted, Sharimara looked like the other siblings on the porch: indigo hair, violet blue skin and very mixed features. Although Tiondel was every much as part of the family as them, the fact that they were biracial was immiately apparent; most people would be hard pressed to guess their descent. Falling upon both him and Uniol, Sharimara squeezed both of them into a big hug.

"Aaahhh we're the last ones to arrive!" she cackled while nearly knocking all three of them over.

"Last but not least, sis," he replied while propping her up.

As uncomfortable as Uniol was with excessive touching, Sharimara was one of the few people Tiondel ever saw him tolerate it from. "You're all here, that's all that matters. How was your trip?"

Just then, a similarly mixed figure followed her inside. Navarion, the oldest brother, glanced around the lodge while casually peeling Sharimara off of Tiondel. "Cold and rough, but we beat the snowstorm," he said, his long, braided goatee bobbing up and down as he spoke. "It's just now starting to fall again."

Although Uniol and Navarion got along quite well, the cousin in law appeared to be all hugged out after surviving Sharimara's anaconda squeeze and sufficed his desire to be a good host by formally bowing to Navarion as well as the two other figures that closed the door behind him. "I was worried about that, actually. This area is so safe that the Sentinel Air Force doesn't patrol that much; the hippogriff riders might not be around to assist travelers."

Tiondel slapped Navarion on the back of the shoulder blade while moving forward. "Issa wouldn't let you hear the end of it," he joked while walking toward their other sister and the woman's fiancé.

Still by the door, Issinia had the mixed physical appearance but was dressed in the formal, proper way that a night elf priestess should. Her fiancé Narrus, who was pureblooded night elf like Uniol (and Tiondel, genetically at least), almost chuckled at the joke made at Issinia's expense until she pouted. "Del, I'm not a nagger," she...well, nagged at him.

"Of course not, never," he chortled. He moved to hug them but Issinia gave him a formal bow instead, and he remembered her preference for only one side of the family's cultural heritage. "Has the balance told you anything of the coming weather?"

Easily relaxing once he backed off, Issinia furrowed her brow in deep thought. Though her eyes were silver like those of most of the family members, they were so bright from the blessing of the moon she'd received as a child that he almost couldn't look her directly in them. "I sense a drop in pressure due to magnetic forces...this region requires a chill in order to balance out the more severe summers they experienced a decade ago."

No sooner had she finished her sentence than had Selia happened upon the group, as haughty as ever. "If one believes in fortunate telling, that is," she said, ignoring the left ear twitch Tiondel sent her as part of their signals for when one of them was crossing the boundaries set by another. Waltzing right up to him as if nothing was awry, she gave cursory nods to Tiondel's siblings - her future in laws, hopefully, if only she could learn to show a little bit more respect.

Issinia narrowed her eyes, her doctrinal sensibilities stung. "Connection to the balance has nothing to do with the sort of palm reading, card flipping exercises of nomadic humans," she retorted, visibly upset by the off color joke that she might have mistaken for blasphemy.

Tiondel stepped in between them in order to prevent further dispute between his family and his other half, but was relieved to hear his cousin approach. "Helllooooo!" Corrianna chirped, not testing the echo of her voice so much as cheering the arrival of people she actually liked.

Sharimara was quick to respond. In a few loping steps, she'd reached their cousin and swept the other half elf up of her feet, twirling Corrianna in the air like a child. "I lurve meh bebehs!" she said in a weird voice while twirling their cousin around. Sharimara had inherited their father's height, and was the biggest person in the room. Corrianna was the second smallest after the petite blood elf female, and the two of them spinning around was a rather comical sight. "Ermagehrd, yeh smurl lerk pertzelees!"

"Cuz I erted the pertzelees!" Corrianna replied in the same weird voice, garnering an eye roll form both Selia and Issinia in an ironic display that only Tiondel seemed to notice.

The two blood elves had already reached the group near the door, stopping by Navarion first. "Dude, you made it bro," Thelios told Navarion while engaging in a ridiculously complicated secret handshake with him.

"Bro, it was too chilling for us to do any chilling," Navarion replied, stepping out of the way as Narrus dropped several suitcases off by the growing pile near a group of cushions. "It's always winter in Winterspring."

"What happens in Winterspring stays in Winterspring!" Henaia chirped while jumping straight up into the air in order to high five Navarion.

Narrus cleared his throat while standing next to the mountain of luggage. The oldest among all of them, his body language and the cadence of his speech carried a dignified air about them, and even Selia tended to settle down whenever he spoke. "If you don't mind, we might want to unpack and change clothes before we start the weekend. As it is, there's no place to sit because of all the bags here," he said while pointing toward the pile of luggage. From the corner of his eye, Tiondel noticed that Jalfaren was still in the kitchen, watching Sharimara twirl the smaller woman around.

Henaia's fel green eyes lit up. "We should totally decide who gets to sleep with who!" she cheered while jumping up and down, falling into Thelios in a way that Tiondel was sure his older sister wouldn't appreciate. Her tongue tut from behind him confirmed his suspicion.

Taking the lead as host, Uniol finally spoke up. "Well, we have four regular bedrooms, one communal sitting room with mattresses set up and one closet with a hammock in it," he listed off while glancing around the second and third floors above them. "We can make this work with a little tricky math...Corra and I will stay together, so that really just leaves three of the regular bedrooms."

In the middle of his monologue, Selia stepped forward to make an announcement. "Del and I will take another-"

"Not happening!" Corrianna interjected as Sharimara set her down on the floor.

Her usual understated manner had flipped into a very blunt sense of disapproval, and Tiondel could already feel a measure of nervousness well up inside of him in anticipation of the coming argument. Usually his family tolerated his girlfriend's behavior with an air of dignity, but now he worried he might be forced to pick sides.

Selia's eyes narrow. "Excuse me?" she asked, barely contained aggression hidden in her voice.

Corrianna's voice bore a measure of iron in it, as if she finally was willing to actually say something to the woman. As if to add an air of finality to the matter, Sharimara jumped onto the train. "You two aren't married. You're not sleeping in the same room in a proper lodge," Sharimara said, he voice suddenly dropping in volume, octave and cheeriness all at once.

Although Selia wasn't likely to take either woman in a physical fight, her prowess when using her words was known. In fact, it was part of why Tiondel had initially been attracted to her: he knew he was difficult to get along with, and the fact that on the outside he looked like a night elf compounded those problems. He was very far from the stereotype of a patient, cool headed man of the forest that Narrus embodied so well. She was his equal, and she didn't deal with being cornered very well.

"I really don't think it's any of your business what Del and I do or don't do together," Selia shot back. Already some members of the group slowly tried to back away: Kirana pretended to suddenly take interest in Henaia's idle banter about big buildings, and Navarion disappeared entirely. Del began to wish he could have, too, when his girlfriend put him on the spot. "It's not like Del and I haven't already taken our relationship to the next level."

 _Damnit Selia_ , he thought to himself. Now she was just intentionally trying to push buttons. While Navarion had gotten himself into a lot of trouble over the years, the family had learned not to ask once the oldest brother had matured enough such that he'd no longer tell them about the things he did when questing away from home. In the case of Tiondel himself, however, he was held to the same standards as the rest of the family: even if they were racially mixed, even if they lived in a seedy goblin port city, their parents still expected certain minimum standards of behavior. And all of them watched over each other to an extent, in order to help keep each other in line.

Practically starting to sweat, he sidestepped just barely an inch back toward the front door when he noticed the eyes of his cousin and sisters locked on to him. Corrianna, who might as well have been another sibling given the closeness of the extended family, looked particularly shocked. "This is Uniol's house...you must accept the rules if you wish to stay," Corrianna said, though the iron had melted away from her demeanor.

Selia let out a moderately disrespectful laugh, but not so much so that anyone would have been able to call her out on it. "Oh, are you getting all religious on me, now? Get real, for ten thousand years the night elves didn't know marriage. If you liked someone, you slept with them and that was like getting married. That's the history of our people."

Fortunately, Issinia remained more level headed. "Selia, immortality had ended; the Long Vigil is over. Temples of Elune everywhere have renewed the rites of marriage because our men are no longer forced away to sleep in the Emerald Dream."

Just when Tiondel didn't quite know how he could escape, he saw his opportunity: Narrus was gone. The faintest outline of a long, turqoise eyebrow poked out from behind the door frame leading to the kitchen. While Jalfaren had actually approached the sound of the dispute, Narrus had taken his place and was surreptitiously waving for Tiondel to bail on the argument and flee with him. It was ironic: the oldest among them and the one most likely to be listened to would rather escape than deal with the dispute between jealous family members and a clingy girlfriend.

Choosing the first instance of raised voices to disappear in the fray, Tiondel tried to walk behind any strategically placed support columns made from natural tree trunks growing up through the floor and into the ceiling to cover his escape. The moment he entered the kitchen, Narrus swiftly dashed forward, leading him silently down the winding hallway and through a random door before they reached the bathroom. The door led to a pantry with an open wooden emergency escape, and Navarion was kneeling just outside and holding it open so that the safety latch on the inside wouldn't close and lock him out.

"This way!" the older brother whispered urgently as Narrus leapt out. "Quick, before they notice we ran!"

"You don't have to tell me twice!" Tiondel replied as he barrel rolled outside, hearing the wodden escape door slide shut after him when Navarion let go.

Outside, the three of them found themselves in between the side of the lodge and a dense thicket of pine trees. To the north, Tiondel could just barely see the edge of that level of the mountain where the elevation dipped far down below toward New Kel'theril itself.

Laughing to themselves for a moment, the three men all began to walk around toward the back of the lodge without even needing to communicate about it. "Narrus, aren't you supposed to be the responsible one here?" Tiondel asked cheekily as the three of them breathed easily but treaded carefully lest one of their womenfolk rush after them to drag them back into the dispute.

The numerically older (though physically young looking) man snorted and then laughed. "Saving you from an awkward conversation seemed like the responsible thing to do in a situation like that," he replied.

"Can't complain there," Tiondel replied.

The three of them all walked with their hands in their coatpockets as the snowflakes fell and covered footprints from deer, hares and some creature with an odd foot shape. Eventually the trio looped in a serpentine fashion across the entire back area as they enjoyed the natural surroundings, making their way toward the very back of the lodge where they could see the resort town below. Part of the natural system of hot springs inside of the mountain erupted behind the lodge in the form of a few steaming moonwells, and they all just enjoyed the crisp mountain air for a moment despite the gradually dropping temperature.

Given time, the others inside would sort things out. Selia could be difficult, but she responded to pressure eventually, and Issinia in particular wasn't likely to quit until his girlfriend at least begrudgingly conceded to the fact that a guest couldn't make her or his own rules. There was no need to worry or feel stressed out...this was a winter vacation at a lone lodge in the mountains. Everything would be fine.


	4. Henaia

**A/N: this chapter is from the perspective of Henaia. I considered a chapter from the perspective of Thelios, but none of the sentences would have been more than five words long. As it is, this chapter was difficult enough for me to write...you'll figure out why.**

Henaia stood in the kitchen. It was a big kitchen. There were cupboards hanging from the ceiling. There was a container full of ice. The ice kept meat cold. There was also an oven. The oven was probably used for cooking. But she and her new friends were not cooking. They were preparing food, but they weren't cooking. Instead, they were preparing food without cooking. The food was cold, but that was okay. It was the type of food that could be eaten cold.

Henaia took some bread. She put the bread on the plate, and the bread was also shared like the plate. On the bread they out pieces of finger food. They could eat it as snacks. Some of the food was cheese. There were many different kinds of cheeses. Henaia loved cheese.

"Slow down there, Henaia!" Uniol said while laughing. He was laugh talking. "We want to make sure there are some snacks for the others; we have to leave some here!"

Uniol's mom owned the house. They were night elves. Jalfaren was in the kitchen too, and he was a night elf too. But he didn't own a big lodge like this, and he used magic. Night elves didn't like magic because they worshipped trees. Trees probably didn't like magic, but Jalfaren didn't like trees so everything worked out. There were four people in the kitchen because Thelios was there.

He stood next to Henaia. He looked at her. "Baby, we should put some crackers on the bread. Can you imagine what it would be like if people put pieces of cheese in between two crackers?"

His words were awesome. They made a lot of sense. Henaia smiled while she pulled out some of the crackers at Uniol's mom's house. "That sounds like a great idea, actually. But if we just put the cheese and the crackers on the big circle of bread, then we can save time because the people will put the crackers between the cheese by themselves." She smiled up at Thelios because she was proud of what she said.

"Whoa...that's totally complicated," he said. He was looking at her when he said it. That made her feel even more proud.

"You flipped it backwards," Jalfaren said. He was at the other side of the countertop. He was slicing a cucumber with a knife that sliced. "People will put the cheese between the crackers, not the other way around." He didn't look at her when he talked. He just looked at the cucumber. He didn't understand anything.

"Nuh uh, that's not how it works," Henaia said. Her words were strong; Thelios liked them.

In the big big room, the argument became quiet. It was loud before, but then it turned quiet. Navarion's family was in that room. He had a brother and his brother had a girlfriend. His family didn't like the girlfriend. She was kind of mean, but now she was quiet. She wanted to sleep in the same room as Tiondel. That wasn't smart. Selia wasn't smart. Henaia was totally otally smart because she knew the right way to be naughty. She would sleep in the room where Corrianna told her to sleep. That's because Corrianna and Navarion were cousins, and Corrianna was married to Uniol. Uniol was mixing dip for chips. It was chip dip. He was serving the chip dip in his own house. He could tell people where to sleep.

But Henaia would only pretend to listen. She was so smart! She would share a room with another woman, and then sneak in to the basement to see Thelios. The others would be asleep. Selia wasn't smart!

Oh look, now the shouting stopped in the big room. They could bring the food in the middle of all the cushions. They also wouldn't have to listen to an argument. The kitchen sure was a safe place.

"Alright, let's not keep them waiting," Uniol said. This was his mom's house. So Thelios followed him. Henaia followed Thelios. Jalfaren ate half the cucumbers and then he followed everybody. Uniol walked forward toward the cushions. Issinia and Sharimara were Navarion's sisters and they were laughing with Kirana. Selia folded her arms. She did not look happy. "Dig in everybody, we've all been traveling a long time!" Uniol said. He set a tablecloth on the carpet. Night elves liked to sit low to the ground to eat. Blood elves liked to sit on tables.

Issinia and Sharimara thanked Henaia and her helpers. That made her feel happy. Issinia tried to call Selia over to eat. Selia looked mad, but she also ate.

"Where's Corra?" Uniol asked. He probably asked because Corrianna was his wife.

Selia held two crackers in between one piece of cheese. Jalfaren was wrong about how the world worked. "She went to fetch a drawing board she claims you told her was in the game room," Selia said. And then she ate the cheese with crackers.

"Could you not use the verb 'fetch' when talking about my cousin, please?" Issinia said. Selia and Issinia did not like each other. But Jalfaren liked Sharimara.

"Could you not whine about something every five seconds?" Selia said. Selia and Issinia did not like each other.

Somebody knocked at the front door. Uniol was still standing. He opened the door. Navarion, Tiondel and Narrus were there. "I was wondering where you all disappeared to!" Uniol said.

Narrus walked inside first. "We were checking out the property for a few minutes; your mother really has set up a nice little haven for sentinels when they need a bit of a break from the more difficult routes." Henaia didn't know what they were talking about. They also talked some more, but she didn't listen. She didn't listen because the food was so good.

"Thelios, try these chips!" she said. Tiondel tried to calm Selia down, but Henaia didn't care. She tried to feed Thelios like a baby. He was her baby. She was his baby. She kissed him because there was dip on his chin. Issinia glared but that was her fault. She should kiss Narrus if she's mad.

"These are great!" Thelios said and he was also hot.

They ate and they also talked about stuff, but Henaia didn't like the stuff. It was complicated. She had to think too much to understand it, so she just ate instead. She burped. Thelios always told her that she was cute when she burped. Issinia is bothered by a lot of things.

Corrianna came down the ramp. The ramp came from the second floor. Blood elves liked stairs, but night elves liked ramps. Corrianna had a green board under her arm. She had chalk in her hand. She looked like a teacher. She was really smart, just like Henaia.

"I found the drawing board upstairs, guys!" Corrianna said. "Let's figure out who sleeps where so we can at least get dressed into more comfortable clothes!"

"It can be like a game!" Henaia said. She was happy. She would make very body else happy. Yeah. "Let's draw pictures of the rooms on the board, and then write the names of people in the rooms they can sleep in!"

Thelios looked at her. She liked it when he looked at her. "That's a good idea!" he said. He made a fist and pumped it in the air. She wanted to kiss him again.

Selia rolled her eyes. She was never happy. But _everybody_ else liked Henaia's idea! Even Jalfaren did. Corrianna set up the chalkboard on a little stand. She drew the rooms. "Alright, so we have four regular bedrooms...like...so," she said. She drew while she said her words. "Then one larger room...here...and a room with a single mattress in it."

Corrianna turned around. Everybody sat on cushions or the floor. They were looking at her. "Alright, so here's how it goes. There are six rooms and twelve of us, but not all the rooms are equal. I took a look at all of them...the little converted room closet has an extra long hammock. So I'm sorry Shari, but you're going to have to sleep there; you're too tall for anywhere else."

Sharimara laughed. She had a pretty laugh even though she was so big. Her brothers laughed. "I don't mind," she said.

Jalfaren was sitting next to her. He kept looking at her. "You're lucky to sleep in a hammock; they're quite comfortable, actually." Sharimara didn't listen to him. Nobody seemed to listen to Jalfaren. Corrianna wrote Sharimara's name in a small box.

"Uniol and I will be staying together," Corrianna said. She smiled and held up her wedding ring. It was pretty. Shiny. Expensive. Shiny. Shiny ring. Henaia wanted a shiny ring, but pink. Shiny. Oh, okay, Corrianna put her shiny ring away. No more shiny. "So there goes one more room." She wrote her name and her husband's name in one of the medium sized boxes. Henaia tried to do the math...three medium boxes...but one big box? This was complicated.

Navarion raised his hand. He was cool. "That leaves the gents with one person beyond the ladies remaining. I suggest we stick some of our names in the big communal room, then," he said. That sounded smart.

Corrianna pointed at him with the chalk. "You just volunteered, then! And..." Corrianna looked at everybody else. Opened one eye more than the other. Henaia found that funny because it was funny. "Thelios and Narrus, because you two are sitting on opposite ends of the grou."

Narrus looked happy. "As good a system of any other," he said. His words didn't make sense. Maybe he was too smart.

Corrianna wrote the names of Navarion, Thelios and Narrus in the biggest box. Thelios wouldn't sleep in the same room as Henaia. But that didn't matter. He shared a big room with two other people. Maybe they wouldn't notice him being gone. This was a good plan. Thelios looked at Henaia. She looked at him. Nobody else noticed. He winked at her. She felt happy.

"Okay, so that leaves Del and Jalf in the last room for the guys," Corrianna said. She wrote more names in boxes. Then she looked at everybody else. She looked at Henaia, she looked at Selia. She looked at Issinia. She looked at Kirana. Kirana was quiet the entire time. She was sitting next to Navarion.

Selia and Issinia didn't like each other. "Uh...Issa, you'll stay with Kirana, okay?" Corrianna said.

"Fine by me!" Kirana said.

"It's great to meet new people," Issinia said.

Corrianna wrote their names in a box. There was only one box left. Henaia was confused. Who would sleep there? Oh wait, Corrianna was looking at her. "And Henaia, you'll share a room with Selia."

Henaia blinked. She looked at all the people. There was nobody else left. She would have to sleep in the same room as Selia. But Selia was not nice. She didn't look at Henaia. She just continued to frown. Tiondel tried to hold her hand. She was mad.

Henaia was worried, but then she wasn't worried anymore. She wouldn't sleep that much. Selia would sleep. Then Henaia would sneak out to find Thelios. They would trick everybody. It didn't matter.

"This will be fun!" Henaia said. Everybody laughed. Selia did not laugh.

Corrianna clapped her hands. Everybody stood up after that. They picked up their suitcases. "Alright everybody, let's unpack, freshen up and settle in. We can try to start preparing a proper meal in an hour or so; the snow might really start by then, so we can stay up all night eating and sharing scary stories!"

Kirana stood closer to Navarion. "Scary stories are great, but I just get so anxious when hearing them," she said. Her voice was quiet. She kept looking at him.

Navarion was busy. He looked at Kirana's bag. She wasn't picking it up. He picked it up for her. She looked happy. "There's nothing to worry about out here...this is a sentinel lodge. Anybody who tries to creep around this place would have to be crazy," he said.

Jalfaren looked at Navarion and Kirana. Then he looked at Sharimara. He tried to take her bag for her. He didn't ask first. She didn't answer him. She took her bag and made a noise at him. It was unladylike. He looked embarrassed.

Thelios picked up Henaia's bag. They wouldn't share the same room. He was so nice and strong. He didn't have to carry her bag but he did. She would sneak out with him later. "Don't worry, baby. We'll see each other later," he said to her.

She smiled when he said that to her. She was planning on doing things with him later. "All in good time later," she said. She sounded smart. It made her laugh.

Everybody took their bags to the second or third floor. They would unpack. Then they could freshen up. Then they could eat. Then they could tell scary stories. Then everybody else would sleep. Then Henaia and Thelios could sneak out together. They would do naughty things. She already felt excited. Yay!


	5. Narrus

**A/N: that last chapter was honestly rather difficult to write. Here's Narrus, a person who's actually normal.**

Narrus carried his suitcase in one hand and Issinia's in the other as everybody walked up the ramps. There were technically two ramps, both of them twisting around and intertwining on their way up to the third floor. Issinia was up at the front of the gradually dispersing group, chatting with Henaia as everybody ascended. Truth be told, Narrus didn't really mind the presence of people who weren't family friends; it was nice to have some new faces around. Since Narrus had no living family members of his own (both of his parents had died in the Third War), most of his social life revolved around Issinia's extended family. Thus, on those rare occasions when he did get to meet new people, he was generally thrilled.

Though he had to admit, there were always some exceptions.

Jalfaren hurried up the ramp, passing Narrus but slowing down behind Sharimara. Most of the other guests were on the other ramp, so only Narrus noticed the way the highborne was trailing Issinia's sister.

"Let me carry that bag for you, Shari-"

Jalfaren's offer was cut off quickly. "It's Sharimara," she said curtly though without the usual loud volume of her voice. In the decade he'd known her, he'd observed that unlike most people, the volume of her voice tended to decrease whenever she became angry rather than increasing. "And no."

She increased her pace, leaving Jalfaren in her proverbial dust as she exited on the second floor. Since the big communal room was on the third floor, Narrus found himself walking side by side next to the silver haired son of a mage family. Roughly half of their group had remained on the second floor, leaving the two of them in relative quiet.

Jalfaren snorted in disapproval as if he hadn't just been tagging behind Sharimara like a child. "Women, am I right?" the younger man asked, obviously seeking approval.

Having been born during night elven immortality - Narrus was about a thousand years old but ageing like someone who was only a hundred - he'd learned a lot of lessons during his life. One of them was that it didn't matter if he didn't spend his time enlightening every last dimwit or miscreant he met, nor was he obligated to do so. Whether Jalfaren understood what was wrong with his behavior and comment or not was ultimately of little consequence. Regardless, he also suspected that such a young and petulant person might be given to gossip, and Narrus always preferred to not need to resort to lying lest Jalfaren later claim that Narrus agrees with his assessment of Sharimara's behavior. Paranoid, perhaps, but based on experience.

"Sharimara's behavior wasn't gender specific," Narrus replied, feeling no need to shy away from correcting someone a twentieth of his age. "She simply isn't the most sociable of people when in unfamiliar environments."

For a few seconds, Jalfaren fell silent and Narrus began to expect the younger man to either clam up or take the comment personally. Neither of which would have particularly bothered him, as long as he knew he'd made his view known clearly. To his surprise, the highborne appeared a little more reasonable than he'd expected.

"Yeah, well...why was she so loud and noisy when she first came inside? It's like she wanted people to pay attention to her."

Narrus sighed. "Each person is entitled to their own perspective on reality, but we can't project our own subjective experiences onto others. What we might perceive as reality is not necessarily what others perceive; that's why it's best not to make assumptions about the intentions of others."

At the top of the ramp, Narrus stopped to look over the railing. The sentinel lodge truly was a cavernous place; though most elves or half elves would be able to leap down all three stories and land at the bottom without serious injury, the height was still daunting. The plates and bowls from their earlier snacks still sat on the rug between all the cushions on the ground floor, though the second floor was full of people. All of the women save Corrianna would be sleeping in that floor, and Narrus smiled when he spied Issinia looking down over the railing with Henaia.

Like all the members of her family, she had that indigo hair and violet blue skin that gave her a dark, almost mysterious appearance that always made him want to find out what she was thinking. Her features were so much like her father, who was a Darkspear troll...yes, Issinia had glowing silver eyes, no tusks, five digits on each limb and eyebrows. But whoever met her would unmistakeably mark her as a half troll, while not everybody could tell that her mother was a night elf; people had guessed at her being a number of things, including part ethereal previously. Her facial features and physical build were very much those of a jungle troll, which had caused all the men in Darnassus to constantly fawn over the exotic trainee priestess when she'd first arrived at the temple. That she'd shown interest in him and nobody else had always made Narrus feel honored; though he knew that she bore a complex about her racial background, he also felt she was the most amazing creature he'd ever set his eyes upon. If only she realized it...

"Yeah, maybe I was being too hard on Shari."

Narrus hadn't even noticed Jalfaren leaning on the railing next to him to watch the second floor. The youngblood had never left him to begin with, simply staring downward at all the women. Because Narrus and Issinia had been together for a decade, he literally felt no remorse at all for admiring her unseen from afar. Jalfaren, however, had nothing to do with the family. The way he leered at Sharimara felt inappropriate.

"She probably didn't mean anything by it. Maybe she'd even apologize if I told her how I feel."

Scrunching his nose up in irritation, Narrus found his patience rapidly wearing thin. "She doesn't know who you are; everybody just met here. The likelihood that she'd care to have some sort of sit down talk is slim to nil."

Jalfaren just continued to leer. "Hmm...sounds like she has a fiery nature. I like that," he mumbled. The tone in his voice insinuated that he believed everything he was saying. Sharimara bent over to inspect her boot, causing her stalker to lean over in subconscious imitation. "Look at those buttocks, she's a born athlete!"

"Hey!" Narrus snapped, losing his cool so fast that he even surprised himself. And his interlocutor, who visibly jumped. "That's my future sister in law, don't talk about her like that!"

"What! Oh! Well, I-"

"Shotgun on the bigger bed," Tiondel said out of nowhere. He'd been walking up the other ramp, and fortunately hadn't heard the way his roommate was talking about his sister. Narrus had no doubt that Tiondel would probably dump the highborne over the railing had he heard.

Seizing the opportunity to escape being scolded, Jalfaren began to follow Tiondel into the room they'd be sharing. "Whatever you say, friend!" he said, scurrying like a weasel into the room. The two of them walked inside, momentarily leaving Narrus by himself.

He didn't have long. Glancing back down, he noticed Navarion exiting one of the rooms on the second floor. He'd initially carried Kirana's bags for her, and appeared to be walking out of that room once he'd dropped them off. Or at least, he was trying to.

In and of itself, Kirana's behavior looked entirely innocent. She caught up to Navarion before he could transport his own bags, touching him on the arm and keeping her hand there for a few moments before letting go. More than once he turned to the side, giving her his shoulder but still laughing politely at her jokes in an attempt to deftly end the conversation. She persisted, taking half steps in whatever direction he did in order to remain in the center of his field of vision. Her behavior was almost cute, in a way, and it certainly wasn't what gave Narrus pause.

What caused him to wonder was Navarion's sudden politeness. Of all his future in laws, Navarion was the most troubled; everybody avoided the topic, but his behavior when under the influence of alcohol was morally questionable. The young man was by no means shy around women, and often his antics had to be bluntly moderated by his siblings. Yet there he was, shying away from a pretty woman his age who was obviously showing interest in him. None of it made any sense until Narrus noticed that the man was wearing a woman's bracelet on his wrist.

"Hey Navarion, we need you up here in order to pick beds," Narrus called downstairs. Everyone else on the second floor had retired to their rooms by then, leaving only Navarion and Kirana themselves to glance up at him. "Put a move on it, otherwise you'll just get the last choice on beds."

His future brother in law didn't need to be told twice. "Coming right up," he replied in a voice loud enough to be heard on all floors of the building. Reassured by the support from a borderline family member, Navarion finally found the resolve to tell Kirana that he had to go, though not before he stupidely laid a hand on her shoulder. That was sure to complicate things in ways beyond what the young man could comprehend.

Once upstairs, Navarion followed Narrus into the former sitting room with three beds inside of it. Thelios had just then finished changing into an honest to goddess pair of plaid pajamas, feeling no silliness at all as he walked around like a giant child. "I already picked my bed, guys. See you downstairs!" The blood elf promptly took his leave, thankfully leaving Narrus and Navarion alone.

They set down their bags and began to remove their boots, though Narrus couldn't prevent his concerns from being voiced. "I noticed your bracelet," he said quietly, trying to be indirect even when he knew that the younger man would see right through the attempt.

Neither of them looked each other in the eye, but he could sense that Navarion felt a little trapped. "I'm still single," he replied a bit defensively. "I'm not betraying anybody."

"That's good to hear. But is there somebody? Somebody you haven't told us all about?"

For a good few seconds, Navarion fell silent, focused on gathering a pile of clothes so he could wait for the bathroom on that floor to be free. Never looking up, he eventually answered after nearly a minute of silence. "My ex. She passed away recently. This was hers."

"Goddess light her path...I'm sure it hurts even after having broken up."

Clothes folded in his hands, Navarion moved to exit, stopping only for a split second before leaving. "Yeah," he sighed over his shoulder, and then promptly disappeared.

Alone in the bedroom, Narrus was able to change into a pair of slippers and a pair of house clothes a little more presentable than plaid pajamas. Once he was ready and comfortable, Narrus stepped out onto the third floor and looked around for the others. Though the lodge was entirely silent at the top, there was quite a bit of commotion at the middle, and he found himself descending in order to find out what the others were up to. The sounds were coming from one of the large sitting rooms - directly below the one on the third floor where he would be staying. Inside, he found quite the odd sight.

Henaia was admiring a piece of highborne pottery as if it was the most amazing thing she'd ever seen. It saw inside of a display case, which itself featured numerous other artifacts that had been produced before the War of the Ancients. Her eyes were opened wide as if she truly comprehended what she was seeing in front of her. The room appeared to be some sort of an art room, with a wooden shade on the outer wall. It had been opened slightly, allowing a small amount of starlight to filter inside for Henaia's benefit - the blood elves could see better in the dark than orcs or humans, but still not like the night elves.

That wasn't what caught Narrus' attention the most, however. What really shocked him was the fact that Corrianna and Selia were accompanying the little Sindorei...and the two of them were _actually getting along_.

Corrianna peered at Selia curiously, and the two were obviously a few minutes into a discussion. "I had no idea that there were tauren who lived in the Stonetalon Mountains historically. They always seem to prefer plains...I mean, I know the Horde moved in to Stonetalon once they were established here on Kalimdor."

"Well, the tauren are tribal, sort of like your uncle's people. So most of them live on the plains but you'll find individual tribes specialized for all sorts of terrain," Selia explained clinically. Though her manner couldn't exactly be described as collegial, she was polite enough such that Narrus almost found himself unable to speak at first. "So we got along with them in Stonetalon long before I was even born - which was around the time the Horde showed up anyway. This is all what my parents have told me."

"That's amazing, we never learned that and we live right next door to your region. I went to the public school in Astranaar and all we ever knew about Stonetalon is that it's Kaldorei territory and the orcs razed it."

Selia snorted derisively. "The humans and gnomes deforested a much larger area back when our race was still a part of the Alliance; they were more efficient at it than the orcs and goblins were. A lot of what's been written in the history books is just propaganda."

"I can completely believe that. Oh, hey Narrus."

Stepping further inside, he found that Selia didn't fold her arms defensively as soon as he was around her for once. Her reaction was unexpected; she'd learned to be wary of him over time. She was dating Tiondel and he was engaged to Issinia; although they were involved with members of the same generation, Narrus was still much older than all of them, and he was much more deft at dousing the flames of Selia's temper. When relaxed on vacation, however, he found her much more amicable.

"Hey, just thought I'd check on everybody. They might be starting to prepare the food by now." In between sentences, his peripheral vision caught the form of Jalfaren passing by as he walked to somewhere else on the second floor. Though Narrus wanted to interrogate him briefly, he couldn't do so without appearing to rudely blow off the people he was already talking to. "Shall we go and see if they need help? Or at least voice our opinions about what's being prepared?"

Kirana passed by the doorway to the lodge's miniature art gallery, going in the opposite direction of Jalfaren as they ascended to the third floor. Just as Narrus was about to distract the women by inviting her in, Corrianna responded and he felt uncomfortable cutting her off. "Actually I wouldn't mind helping; Uniol will be cooking for sure and I need to do the whole hostess thing along with him," she replied.

Thinking nobody noticed, Henaia walked right past the entire group, following neither Jalfaren nor Kirana but rather going downstairs to the ground floor. This time, it was Selia who started talking, and he especially didn't want to interrupt her and ruin what had to be the first positive exchange he'd ever had with the woman. "I mainly just want to make sure that they aren't spicing things up too much. I can't deal with spices. Let's go." Without even seeking consent from Narrus, Selia began walking out of the art room, walking next to Corrianna on the way.

Sighing deeply, Narrus resigned himself to following them. He was absolutely certain that Kirana, Jalfaren and Henaia were up to not so good acts, but he'd gone on that trip to relax, not to chaperone. If he could tune out the occasional annoyances, then he probably wouldn't feel the need for another vacation for a while.

The three of them left, heading toward the kitchen for various reasons. So relaxed did Narrus allow himself to become that, although he had noticed the three naughty guests sneaking around, he didn't notice the shadow outside the lodge that moving past the wooden shudders, temporarily blocking the starlight from entering the slits before it was gone.


	6. Jalfaren 1

**A/N: and now for something completely different. Even different from when Henaia narrated. This is from the perspective of Jalfaren. If you start to absolutely detest the man, keep in mind that you're supposed to.**

Jalfaren noticed Kirana going up the ramp and Henaia going down as he skulked around the second floor of the lodge. The place was enormous despite the appearance on the outside, and it made much better usage of space than the normal dwellings built by the non arcane Magic wielders that comprised the majority of his race.

 _Fools_ , he thought to himself when reminiscing on literally all night elves except for his highborne caste. Why so many of his fellow Kaldorei still clung to their old tree worshipping ways was beyond him. The Long Vigil was over; there was no reason r them not to accept the modern world now.

Bah. Too much rumination over savages who didn't deserve it. They might be savages who were hosting his stay, but he found it hard to respect them regardless. Especially when they were foolish enough to take in a person who looked down upon them (him) as a good, trusted friend. At least Selia bore a modicum of intelligence more: she'd once confided in him that she didn't actually believe in the teachings of Elune and assumed that the deity was just a naaru or something. The rest of these people were mainly good for providing a bitching place to stay for the weekend and nothing more.

Around the corner, he could vaguely hear the voice of Narrus and two of the women. Ducking into a hallway in the packed space of the lodge, he was able to shut his eyes just enough to restrict the glowing light and hide. The lame party pooper that he was, Narrus sufficed himself with walking behind the two women like some sort of an entourage member who filled in background space and never said anything. How apt, considering how empty and vapid the man's head was, filled only with empty proverbs and expressions. The two women, the one with the shitty red hair dye and the scrawny half human, thankfully descended to the first floor and left Jalfaren by himself.

Jackpot...now he was alone. He's noticed Sharimara walk down a hallway on the second floor, and for sure she was obviously around there somewhere. If she hadn't emerged yet, then hopefully she was still changing her clothes before joining the others. It's exactly what he was hoping for.

Inside the dark hallway, he noticed a few doors on one side and a laundry chute on the other. Naturally grown floorboards creaked beneath the weight of someone large, and Jalfaren could already feel his thrill at doing something very wrong increase. Only the gorgeous Amazon would cause the boards to creak so much, and he easily pinpointed the door she was behind as the middle one. Since the converted storage closet was next to two other doors, he assumed that all three were of the same design. And if there was one thing that stalking women had taught him, it was that in most dwellings that didn't belong to a specific individual, there were means of spying. It didn't matter why or how, but there was almost always a way to peep at people who didn't know they were being watched. If his intuition was correct, one of the two doors on either side would feature that peephole.

Ever so slowly, Jalfaren pulled one of the door's open, using exact motions so as not to disturb the giantess that was the object of his perversion. The storage closet was mostly empty save a few broom handles and buckets. Drapes were hung from the walls of the interior room, likely because there was nowhere else handy to put them. Closing the door behind him lest he be discovered, he pulled one of the drapes away.

"Jackpot," he snickered to himself as he found what he was looking for.

Inside the closet was another closet, though it didn't have a door; the drapes had merely concealed it. A few shelves lined it, and there were various items typical of an old closet scattered about - sewing thread, four sheets of paper, an empty jar. The place definitely looked forgotten, as if whatever pagan witches or whoever those people who led the lower form of night elves who'd grown this lodge had created much more space than was actually needed by the savages who passed through here. None of that interested Jalfaren, though. No, what interested him was the fact that somebody just like him had stayed at that lodge before.

There was a hole poked through the wall to the next room.

Having peeped on people for most of his life, he'd learned the telltale signs of where like minded people would hide to engage in their fetish. There were only a few paces where one could do so with impunity; the risk of being caught was part of the thrill but also the only hazard. Fortunately, he had an eye for creeping and stalking, and he generally knew where to look for such marks. Narrowing his eyes so the silver glow would become less noticeable, he hovered over toward the peephole. The sound of an article of clothing hitting the floor in the next room already set his befuddled mind ablaze.

Kneeling down carefully like a rat inspecting the cheese in a trap, he lowered himself to the peephole, salivating the entire time. Sharimara had green eyes - not fel green like the blood elves, but natural green like the night elf wardens. Those eyes provided all the light he needed in her room to take in the magnificent view.

She was a goddess. The best of both worlds, bred from two savage races who were wild, carefree and hopefully loose. Her clothes were strewn about, some on the floor and some on the extra long bed, revealing her undergarments and causing him to lick his lips subconsciously. Everything about her was amazing, and he just knew that her previous prickly behavior was merely her playing hard to get; she must have wanted him, otherwise she wouldn't have teased him on the ramp. That's what she'd been doing.

She turned around, providing him a view of her ample frontside, and...he nearly snickered to himself from his hiding spot. Queen Azshara herself wasn't so endowed physically. When Sharimara reached up to change from a sturdy and uncomfortable support brassiere that padded her down to something more comfortable for the house, Jalfaren reached downward and started touching himself. Yes, this is what he wanted - nay, deserved.

And...wait a second. Sharimara stopped removing her bra. Clutching it to her chest with both hands, she merely paused for a moment, green light flickering in the room as she held a statuesque pose. One thick, muscular leg began to shift, revealing a bare foot that sent him into such a frenzy that sweat began to collect in his hair. Just as he started to unbutton his pants...

...her foot flew out and kicked the part of the wall right where he'd been peeping.

"Hhrrrnnn!" Jalfaren hissed into his closed mouth as an intense pain shot from his nose up into his forehead. A small snap reached his ears, as inaudible to her as his hiss but the panic that his nose break sent surging through him already sent him crawling on his hands and knees toward the door like a dog.

Angry, heavier footsteps whumped against the floor as clothing whipped around, and his panic increased tenfold as he realized that - for the first time in his life - a woman he'd stalked had realized what was going on. Terror gripped his soul as he imagined the entire group at the lodge catching on to what he was really like, an image of them all throwing rotten food at him as he ran off into the snow spurring him to slide out the door. She might have heard the door open, but she already figured out that someone was there; if he could escape, then at least she wouldn't know it was him and not Thelios-

The laundry chute!

A button zipped and he nearly lost his bowels as he realized that Sharimara had slipped a pair of combat leathers on. Swinging the chute open, Jalfaren ignored the searing pain in his nose and the pathetic tears in his eyes and threw himself down the smooth wooden shoot. The door of the shoot swung closed at the same time that the door to Sharimara's closet turned room swung open, and a new kind of fear infected him as he found himself sliding way too far. Cobwebs and mothballs tangled around his ears, though none of that was as bad as the dirty sock stuck to the side of the shoot that accidentally went into his mouth. He felt it stick to his tongue before he spat up, and before he could even brace himself he found the air pressure drop dramatically as he fell into a basement with stone walls.

"Gah!" he cried as he landed in a pile of old, bloodied bandages and soiled underpants. Contrary to his masturbatory fantasies, landing on a pile of Amazon women's panties in seclusion was not particularly arousing.

After ripping the cobwebs and mothballs out of his ear canal and spitting up a bit more, he spun around to take in his surroundings. What's his face who's mom or aunt or something owned this place hadn't mentioned a basement. That probably meant there was a stash of treated peaceblooms he could smoke, or better yet inappropriate pictures of female family members. Without even taking the time to inspect the maze of hallways in the basement that was cut into the side of a mountain, Jalfaren took solace in the fact that he couldn't hear any footsteps descending from upstairs and fell upon a series of drawers in a bureau near the wall opposite the entrance door.

Inside, all he seemed to find was more underwear (clean underwear, at that...worthless) and lots and lots of goblin manufactured duct tape. A few disappointing drawers full of bladeless hilts and square strips of uncut leather later and he'd just about given up on the basement. Until a cold wind stung his ears, that is.

Jalfaren looked up toward the wall. "What the..." he mumbled as he spied a wooden door laying open. He could see the snow covered ground level through the little window up at the very top of the basement ceiling, and a bit of it had even seeped in. "Who the hell is stupid enough to leave doors open behind them?" he wondered out loud, feeling proud that he'd openly issued a verbal challenge though relieved that there was nobody present who would actually argue with him.

Pressing a clump of unused bandages to his swollen, broken nose, he winced in pain as he started to climb out of the window because...well, it was better than walking up the stairs from the basement with a bloody nose after Sharimara had kicked him. That bitch might have even told half the house by then, and he'd be blamed. It wasn't even remotely fair, and ideas floated through his mind as he climbed out of his escape route and shut the wooden passage behind him.

Maybe he could claim he tripped and fell while inspecting the outside for wild animals or something. Or maybe he could claim he has been robbed and beaten up...yes, that was it! Pretend to be wounded by some strangers, and maybe even flash Sharimara one of his winning smiles and perfect puppy dog eyes. He stumbled through the snow, snickering to himself like a real winner until he heard the voice behind him.

"Jalf? Jalf, is it?" a feminine voice with a cute Darnassian accent but a disappointing, uptight diction to it asked from behind him. He turned around...great. Just as he'd feared. "What are you doing out here?" Issinia asked.

Sharimara's older sister was just as exotic looking, and had that Amazonian air to her that made him want to be trampled. Unfortunately, her boyfriend who's his name was also twice Jalfaren's size and the official pooper of parties, and had a piss poor attitude to boot. To top it all off, Issinia was a priestess of the moon, which meant she showed a bit of flesh in her gown but acted like she didn't want people to look, a true hypocrite if he'd ever seen one. What a frustrating person to deal with-

"Hello? Are you listening to me at all?" Issinia asked again, her voice tempered with impatience that Jalfaren deemed her undeserving of. "Your face is a mess...are you drowsy? Do you have a concussion?"

Jalfaren blinked, a light bulb going off as one of his intricate plans came to fruition: Issinia was a priestess in the night elven sense. She was half jungle troll, but her class was all night elf like Sharimara's; the Kaldorei battle priestesses could both blast enemies with moon magic as well as heal allies. Of course, he hadn't thought of that until literally a few seconds before, but still. Plans. Fruition. Genius.

"Oh...Issa, it was terrible! I was trying to enjoy the nature out here when somebody shoved me down from behind! My face hit a rock under the snow, but those cowards ran away when they realized I didn't have any money on me." She continued to give him a skeptical look for a moment, so he decided to play his trump card and use her religious sensibilities. "White Lady as my witness to the truth!"

Upon his invoking the goddess she was pledged to, Issinia's expression softened. "Then it's as I feared...I was standing near one of the shudders when I noticed movement in the trees. We need to tell the others just in case we're being watched, but let me heal you first." He held her hands out toward him, the silver glow already radiating from her palms.

"Well...bless you, then!" Jalfaren beamed while stepping forward and letting her touch his face. She wasn't Sharimara, but the sensation of her magic working its way beneath his skin aroused him just enough that he didn't feel like the whole ordeal was a total loss. A bone snap later and he felt his nose shift back into place. "Thank you so much!" he said, thinking more about the fact that chance had given him the boon of a witness to help Sharimara feel sorry for him now (and to not kick him in the face through a wall again the moment he walked into the lodge).

But Issinia didn't answer. Her ears swiveled around as if she'd heard something, and for a few seconds Jalfaren began to worry that they really were being watched. He whirled around, nervous in reaction to her behavior and backing up behind her just in case they were attacked and he needed her body to absorb projectiles for him. Heavy footsteps and branches breaking made him yelp, though when he tried to cling to Issinia's arm she just shoved him down into the snow.

Once the dizziness faded, he saw a white figure in the woods with two short, curved horns.

"Mister Montanha?" Issinia asked, her shoulders loosening up. "I thought you were an intruder!"

The tauren snorted, wrapping a shawl more tightly around him as he approached (and didn't even offer to help Jalfaren up). "You might have mistaken me for the actual intruders," the white furred tauren said in a flat, ominous tone.

Issinia stood up a little straighter, also failing to help Jalfaren up. "What are you talking about?" she asked. Her tone had become a little defensive.

Mister Montanha glanced around before answering. "I wasn't planning on leaving my cabin again...what with the snowstorm looming and all," he said, pointing to the edge of the mountain to the north where a white wall shimmered over the valley a few miles away. "But I heard someone...and then I saw someone. I don't want to say who I think it is without being sure, but I felt the need to inform you all. Watch out for yourselves tonight."

At first, Issinia didn't answer, and Jalfaren began to worry that something serious was afoot. A moderately skeptical aura wafted around her, failing to daunt the tauren but making Jalfaren increasingly nervous. "Why can't you just tell me who you think it might be?" she demanded.

Stepping away, Mister Montanha shook his head politely; Jalfaren noticed a hand axe not designed for cutting wood that was attached to the tauren's belt. "It isn't my right to say without proof. Just...the snowstorm is coming; nobody should be venturing outside anyway. Stay vigilant, and I'll keep things safe on my end." Without even waiting for her confirmation, the unusually short tauren turned around and walked back toward the front of the lodge, making his way toward the trail that passed by his cabin on a lower level.

Issinia continued to watch the direction he'd disappeared into, and Jalfaren found himself suddenly more comfortable inside the lodge even if Sharimara suspected his foul play. "There's...there's a snowstorm hanging right over the horizon. Anybody who approaches will be frozen," he suggested, reaching for her arm again.

Yanking her arm away and tutting her tongue at him for a reason he wasn't sure of, Issinia just started walking back around to the front porch. "Better safe than sorry; we need to tell the others. Whoever attacked you might still be here, and we need to take proper precautions. Come on."

Certainly not wanting to be left alone outside, Jalfaren stumbled after her, nearly falling over a rock beneath the snow for real this time and trying to play it off like a boss even when slush seeped inside one of his shoes. His lie might give everyone the wrong impression, but the truth might lead to him being publicly humiliated by them, especially if it spurred Selia, Tiondel and Kirana to conspire and find out that he didn't actually know any of them and had only joined the trip after spying on their conversations and pretending to each one of them that another had invited him. If was a stark choice...

...though not a difficult one. Lies all the way!


	7. Kirana 1

**A/N: dysfunctional characters are so much fun. Here, have a little dose of Kirana!**

Kirana ignored Jalfaren as she walked up the ramp, wondering to herself why the fel Selia had invited him anyway. He was weird and kind of a loser, but whatever. Beggars couldn't be choosers...and as Kirana eyed the opulent splendor of a real sentinel vacation lodge, she did feel like a bit of a beggar.

The third floor granted her a truly fantastic view of the entire building. All her life, she'd lived in a miserable village in the Stonetalon Mountains, her only connection to the outside world being whatever hapless travelers passed through. Because she'd been born after immortality had ended, she'd at least had the privilege of growing up in a household with her father present rather than sleeping in the Emerald Dream. Of course, both her parents were killed soon after, and that blissful period didn't last; the temple of Elune had taken her in, schooling her but providing little to do in such a boring place. Luckily, orphans were often exposed to the seedier elements of society early on, and she'd learned the arts of sneaking and pilfering at a young age. And girl, what a great skill it was when you had rich friends!

Not Selia, of course; Selia had grown up in a typical night elf household in the older style, with a mother who was always out on sentinel patrols and a father who wasn't a part of her life. But once Selia had landed a Hearthglen boy, the woman had hit the jackpot. Tiondel's family was weird and biracial, but also well off; every time the woman brought Kirana along with her to visit his family, there was no shortage of little trinkets and odds and ends to lift. The Hearthglens were so kind, so trusting, that they simply assumed their shiny objects were disappearing beneath furniture and behind cabinets. If only Selia could stop antagonizing them all the time and maybe not criticize Tiondel so much...

...well, maybe Kirana wouldn't need to ride on somebody else's coat tails forever. As she walked along the common loft in the empty third floor, she could hear Navarion bumping around in the bathroom he'd chosen to get dressed in. Truth be told, nobody other than Tiondel remembered who she was. That did anger her a bit: she'd visited their house at least thrice and had even sat at the same table as Issinia during a communal luncheon once. Navarion in particular had seen her at least two times, and it was the second time when she'd realized that he was the weak link she could target in order to work her way into a better family.

As Kirana waited on the loft for him, she ran her fingers along the top of a small dresser that had been placed there for communal use. At least she'd be able to indulge herself for a bit before she had to put on a show. A number of older, non highborne artifacts adorned the top; various statues carved from precious metals and inlaid with rare stones. She was able to sweep away a few of the smaller items such as rings and amulets, though the absence of any larger pieces would most certainly be noticed. Years of living in survival mode had taught her that limits were important when stealing from familiar environments, and she hadn't been caught in at least a decade. Regardless, the little high she experienced as she stole the rings on top of the dresser was only slightly diminished from what it had been during her childhood. That nervous energy would come in handy when she needed to push and pull the only single Hearthglen boy in the house in just a few-

The door slid open, and in a flash Kirana found herself bracing both hands against the outside of the doorframe. Her posture was demure enough such that she'd appear to be resting against the wall, but firm enough such that Navarion wouldn't be able to exit without pushing against her.

He had been looking down at the tie of his thick pajama pants, and only noticed her presence when he nearly plowed right into her. The look of surprise in his eyes was just what she'd wanted, like a deer about to be slaughtered by wolves it couldn't even see. In a brutish sort of way, he was almost handsome; Kirana had zero attraction to anyone who looked too differently from her own people, but for a half troll he didn't look that bad. She could manage if she just pretended that his tusks weren't real, especially if he could be her meal ticket into a better life.

"Uh...hey," he murmured awkwardly while matting down his indigo mohawk. It was a horrid hairstyle but she could start changing him soon enough.

Holding his eyes for a moment, she worked the few seconds of silence to her advantage. "Heyyyyy...I was wondering where you went off to," she chirped as cheerily as she could muster. Strangely, she found herself almost unable to fake the conversation the way she'd planned, and wished they could just skip past introductions and jump straight to him buying a house under her name. "Seems like you're a wanted man around here!"

She stood on one foot as they talked, trying to look as flirtatious as possible without crossing the line into ludicrousness. However, he looked thoroughly uncomfortable and took one step forward in a signal that he wanted to exit the bathroom. "Well, it's certainly nice to be on vacation with everybody all at once, isn't it?" he asked, indicating with a tilt of his chin that he wished to pass. A quick tick of anger shot through Kirana at the notion of being dismissed, and she pretended to not understand what he wanted.

"Oh...I'm not that interested in _everybody_ ," she said, walking a fine line between being friendly and being suggestive. "I mainly want to rekindle old friendships...like that time back at the juice bar."

One of Navarion's medium length eyebrows cocked upward. "I'm...the what? Sorry?"

Almost sneering in irritation at first, Kirana just barely managed to force her face into a congenial smile at the last second. "The juice bar. At Ratchet. You know, where Selia and Del brought everybody there...you were wearing that tiger shark necklace." When she mentioned the necklace, she reached forward and tried to let her fingernails dance across his collar bone, only to find her machinations thwarted again when he leaned backward.

What was wrong with this man! Why wouldn't he hold still long enough for her to work her magic! "Oh, uh...yes, I remember that juice bar," he replied noncommittally.

Like an immovable object, she wanted nothing more than to push him over. Men with less than half the sex drive she'd heard Navarion had would usually have taken her hints by then; how the supposed bad boy of the Hearthglen family had failed to do so until then only confounded her even more. Angrily seeking a way to get into his head (which was half the fun, at least if he hadn't been pissing her off already), she tried to push him.

"It was the one where you and the naga woman were spending a lot of time together...she gave you that, didn't she?" Kirana said while pointing with her nose toward the feminine bracelet he wore in one hand, hoping that he'd take the bait and venture into the topic of his relationship status.

The look of that deer, boxed in and defenseless, spread across his face again, filling her with a measure of hope. She retained her grip on the door frame and held her single dainty foot in place, but leaned a bit further forward, pressing him further back into the bathroom as the bad boy suddenly became flustered. "What? You mean Nephentha? She's Issa's best friend...one of my best friends. But no, this bracelet isn't hers. I mean, she's a reptile...we're mammals-"

We. Kirana sank her fangs into that word. "Silly me; we _are_ mammals, aren't we?" she giggled, not taking her eyes off him as she watched him gain a growing sense of exposure. "So wait a minute...is that the bracelet you wore when we were at the juice bar together?"

For the briefest of moments, an almost skeptical arch wove its way into his brows and she began to worry that she'd crossed the line of credulity. Fortunately, the hook was still in his cheek and the line was already pulled taut. "I wasn't wearing any...well, I don't think so, no-"

"Whose is this? This is...well, it's girly, isn't it?" Granting him room to breathe, she removed one of her hands from the doorframe, technically giving him the space to leave but looping her fingers in the bracelet as well.

She had him. Instead of brushing past her, his eyes focused on the bracelet that obviously belonged to a woman who wasn't present with them at the lodge. In Kirana's eyes, that meant whoever it belonged to might as well have not existed.

"Well, this belonged to someone else. She gave it to me, and..." A faint hint of emotion in his voice as he stared at the bracelet revealed his weakness, and Kirana thanked her lucky stars for the fact that he'd already opened up so easily. Men who were less morally corrupt than him often held their pasts away from her for longer. "...well, it's a memento she allowed me to keep."

Kirana grinned, though she tried to moderate it so that he didn't realize the full extent of her glee. This had gone from a clusterfuck of a manipulation attempt to a rather successful example of mind games with barely any toying on her part. Just as she was about to move in for the kill, the pooper of all parties approached.

"Hey Navarion, we...oh," Corrianna said from behind them on the loft. Awful, bitter relief washed over his face when he saw his cousin, and Kirana silently cursed the woman. "Kirana, could I borrow him for a second?"

 _Bitch I will cut you_. "Yeah, sure! We're all here to spread the winter wonder," Kirana replied, churning out the cheesy line as the only way to keep her from losing her cool with one of the hosts.

Corrianna continued to stare her down when she tried to stand her ground. "I mean now, Kirana. This is important." The half elf continued to stare at Kirana with an air of protective jealousy for her family member, not realizing that she was dealing with someone who'd bitten the tips of people's ears off before when it came to getting what she wanted.

To Kirana's chagrin, the target of her manipulation quashed the staring contest for her. "What's wrong?" Navarion asked as he brushed past, angering her once more as his attention went to Corrianna.

"Issa and Jalf saw somebody outside the lodge, and Mister Montanha claims he saw a stalker outside as well. Apparently Jalf got beaten up and...well, they can explain it better."

"Let's go," he said, forgetting the melancholy Kirana had seen in his eyes moments before. Struggling to keep up, she put Navarion in between herself and Corrianna, holding on to his arm as the three of them descended down the ramp. "We've been planning this for a long time, there's no reason to let our trip be spoiled by some miscreants."

At the bottom floor, a measure of commotion sounded like it was just now dying down. Kirana spied Issinia trying to ignore Jalfaren leering at her as she looked out the peephole, obviously too concerned about the potential intruder to care about the creep. Harsh grunts from both Corrianna and Navarion sent the man nearly tumbling down, and Issinia turned around to greet them.

"In told him the gist of it," Corrianna said as the trio reached the open area near the front door.

Issinia glared at Kirana for a second, and she released Navarion's arm due to the extra scrutiny. "If that's the case, then there's no reason to rehash the matter. We need a solution, and I'm not entirely comfortable relying on Mister Montanha."

Leaving Kirana out of the discussion entirely, Corrianna folded her arms and glanced at the floor, obviously in deep thought. "He seems like a genuinely good man...I don't think he'd be the one who hurt Jalf."

"He's weird," Jalfaren mumbled, failing to see the irony.

Navarion stepped away from Kirana, leaving her feeling forgotten and upset again as he pulled his sister with him back toward the ramps. "Look, the others will need to know, but we have confirmation that someone is sneaking about if Jalf was attacked. You can bless the area to flay any possible demons lurking, and I can set up my stasis trap wards to capture any common muggers. Corra, can you let the others know what's going on?"

Corrianna moved over toward Kirana, which is _not_ what Kirana wanted at all. "Yes, I think we can make sure everybody is informed. But are you sure...goddess, demons?"

Issinia had already started walking up the ramp. "Just a precaution. I can invoke the White Lady's name against fel corruption on the whole property outside in less than twenty minutes; better safe than sorry."

"Alright then," Corrianna replied. "Me and Kirana-"

"I'll go!" Kirana interjected, quickly catching up with Navarion. "I know a bit about voodoo from the Darkspear people back in Stonetalon...I can help you set up the wards." She bat her eyelashes at him, hoping that the display would help her lie to become a bit more believable.

Although both his sister and cousin shot her another look of protective jealousy for their male relative, he looked like he felt pressured to make her happy rather than legitimately glad to have her along. It was exactly the reaction she wanted.

"I...okay, I suppose a bit of assistance wouldn't hurt."

"We'll all go together," Issinia said firmly while inserting herself in between Navarion and Kirana.

Corrianna kept her arms folded, staring at Kirana again from the bottom floor as the new trio ascended the staircase. "Great idea, Issa," she said with more than a little acrimony in her tone as she and Kirana traded resentful stares.

Flipping her dyed red hair in Corrianna's direction as the best show of defiance she could muster, Kirana resigned herself to having a chaperone come along with them. She'd take her revenge by pilfering through the suitcases of both women later, though not until they were ready to leave; the best acts of vengeance were those the poor saps wouldn't notice until after the time for possible retribution had passed.


	8. Uniol 1

**A/N: whew...enough dysfunctional perspectives for a bit. This chapter belongs to Uniol.**

Uniol continued to rotate the chickens on the iron spit in the hearth. Because sentinel lodges tended to be composed mostly of wood, food that needed to be cooked was most often prepared outside in a pit fire. Since this specific lodge was a vacation lodge, however, there was a specially grown stone hearth at the outside wall in the kitchen, allowing a chimney to filter out the smoke. He was quite proud of the job they'd done so far: the spiced sauce had been imported from Feralas, and he'd taken extra care applying it to every square inch of the boneless bird meat.

The smell was intoxicating, and he hoped Corrianna would be pleasantly surprised by the job he did. In addition to the plumbing issues at the infamous gnome run hotel they'd chosen for their honeymoon in Thousand Needles the year before, there were other problems that had more or less ruined the joyous occasion as well. Chief among them had been his attempt to fry steaks on the wood powered stove in their hotel room: not only had he burned them, but he'd filled the room with the odor of charred meat for the rest of their stay. This time, at the lodge, he'd give her a proper vacation. No matter how many times she insisted that their honeymoon had been fun regardless, he still felt the need to make it up to her. It was the least he could do for someone who had brightened up his life for so long.

Narrus knelt down next to him, pushing around the scented charcoal in the hearth with an iron poker. "We used to cook this way at the barrow dens during the Long Vigil," the older man said while reminiscing about times since past. "It's much safer to keep the fire contained, plus it keeps so much of the smoky flavor in the meat."

"I noticed that too; everything seems to taste better when it's cooked inside of these things."

From behind them, he could hear the others preparing a bed of steamed vegetables on a few large platters. Although Corrianna had finally gotten along with Selia in the time she'd been in the kitchen, the air became noticeably more tense when she left and was replaced by Sharimara. The Hearthglen siblings were Corrianna's cousins, but they all behaved like brothers and sisters, and Uniol himself knew them all just as well. He knew Sharimara well enough to sense that she was in a bad mood about something the moment she stormed in to the kitchen, and he knew that Selia was in the mood to poke her for no readily available reason. Tiondel stood in the same place as always: in the middle, between his family and his girlfriend, unsure of how to balance the two.

"You cut the carrots too small," Selia sighed wearily. She was an incredible actress, and Uniol could tell that she was trying her best to grate on the nerves of her boyfriend's sister.

Visibly agitated, Sharimara began to cut the carrots into even smaller pieces. "If you don't like them, then don't eat them," the giantess replied.

"I like carrots though, Shari. That's why I'm telling you."

"Then cut them yourself or shut the fel up."

Tutting her tongue, Selia looked every bit the part of a passive aggressive instigator. "Is it possible for you to go for one family gathering without instigating conflict, Sharimara dear?" She continued applying liberal amounts of flax seed oil to the bed of vegetables, not even bothering to look up when Sharimara slammed the knife down on the counter in the center of the kitchen.

"You are _not_ a part of this family. You are _not_ my sister in law, you have _no_ legal connections to the Hearthglen household at all, and **by the night** will you look at me when I'm talking to you?"

Playing up to the passive aggressive role of supposedly taking the high road, Selia didn't pause for one microsecond. "Elune bless you," she mock sighed.

Tiondel finally frowned. "Selia..."

"What? I thought the family still hoped I'd start practicing as regularly as the rest of you. Would you prefer that I remove the faith of the White Lady from my mind entirely?"

Sharimara growled something in Zandali which only Tiondel understood, at which point the scent of the chicken no longer took the spot as the foremost priority in Uniol's mind. Narrus nudged him as the two knelt in front of the hearth. "Maybe you ought to talk to Del for a few minutes...I don't think he quite understands the importance of conflict mediation," Narrus whispered. It was the closest that Uniol had ever heard the older man come to openly criticizing another member of their extended family before; it was probably better to let him handle it.

"I concur," Uniol whispered back as he handed the iron spit over to Narrus. Standing up, he found his two cousins in law (if that was a thing) arguing in a language nobody else understood while Selia sat smugly and looked rather pleased with herself. "Del, the handkerchiefs are all in the basement, packed up next to the extra bath towels. Would you mind holding the door open for me? The box of them is big and I can't see where I'm going when I carry it."

Hesitant to intervene in the spat between his girlfriend and his sister but also hesitant to leave, Tiondel appeared conflicted at first. Selia and Sharimara both paused, however, and Uniol could sense a tangible rise in the tension in the room as both women realized the only person standing between them might leave. Narrus was undoubtedly better at mediating disputes, but neither of them seemed to notice that he'd been listening in on their conversation.

When neither of them reacted, Tiondel stepped off of the stool he'd been sitting on. "Alright, let's go find them," he half sighed. As he passed by Selia on his way toward the hallway leading toward the back of the building, he ran his hand along Selia's lower back, causing her to lose her composure for a moment. Sharimara grunted in disapproval, but otherwise didn't react as the two men left the kitchen and walked down into the basement.

Once inside, Uniol immediately noticed the colder temperature. "It feels like an icebox in here...what the...why is the access passage open?"

Straight across from them, a little wooden window had been left open. The snow at ground level could be seen, and some of it had even spilled inside and melted on the floor. A few drawers in the various cupboards had been left ajar as well, and Uniol felt a measure of irritation as he wondered which guest had been playing games in the basement without his permission. Of course, he didn't want them to feel uncomfortable in the lodge, but the basement wasn't an area any of them needed to enter.

"Seems like somebody was playing around down here in the basement," Tiondel chuckled while eyeing a wooden box full of bath towels.

While Uniol gathered up a smaller box full of handkerchiefs, he tried to broach the difficult topic of the man's relationship. "Del...perhaps it isn't my place, but are things okay with you and Selia?" he asked almost timidly.

At first, Tiondel didn't respond, and Uniol began to wonder that his intrusion wasn't welcome. After a few seconds, however, his cousin in law tapped the bath towel box with his foot and appeared to consider the question. "Things are fine, honestly. Maybe she's just stressed because she's in a new environment, but she's fine."

Uniol tried to face the other direction as he spoke, not wanting to appear confrontational; he knew that Tiondel, whether adopted or not, took after his father's trollish nature and could have a temper at times. "Selia isn't a kid, though...a change in environs shouldn't carry with it such a significant impact."

Whether Tiondel was in an exceptionally open mood that day or he simply wanted to vent, he didn't react in irritation as Uniol had expected him to. "I don't know...she was even more excited about this trip than me, and she knew my family would be coming. I thought maybe this would be her way of indirectly reconciling, given that she has difficulty apologizing directly. She's a lot like Shari, actually, and even our mom."

"I noticed...the two of them, Selia and Shari I mean. They seem designed to clash with each other constantly."

"I didn't even realize how similar they are to each other until I was with Selia for a good two years. But the bickering is just constant. Don't get me wrong; when she wants to be, Selia is by far the sweetest person I've ever met. I don't think I could imagine...well, she's unbelievable. But that's only when she wants to be. It's like she had a button for kindness that she can turn on and off."

"Well, it isn't my place to judge...Corra and I aren't perfect together either. But you could always try phrasing it to her positively like that: she has the power to make that choice."

This time when Tiondel fell silent, Uniol didn't worry. He hadn't pushed the envelope - though he guessed that he'd drawn near to that point - and was still within the bounds of familial advice giving. How ironic, then, considering how similar Tiondel was to Sharimara in his occasional volatility.

Waving his hand at the situation rather than Uniol himself (he could tell), Tiondel seemed to have reached his limit of opening up. "I suppose that's a better idea...I'll talk to her now, in that-"

"SAY THAT TO MY FACE!"

Uniol and Tiondel both froze and looked at each other for a minute. There was a moment of silence after Sharimara's verbal challenge that was followed by four pairs of feet scuffling rather than three, as well as Narrus' calm but physically exasperated voice as he sounded like he was trying to break up a fight.

"Shit," Tiondel grumbled while bolting out of the basement and back up the stairs.

Uniol started to follow him at first, though he quickly turned tail to grab the boxes of towels and kerchiefs anyway before rejoining the rush to break up a fight in his mother's lodge. Distant, objective mode engaged as he found himself suddenly a bit numb, pushing out ideas of how the weekend he'd planned for everybody could go wrong and instead just focusing on the strategery of trying to subdue Sharimara, who was possibly the most dangerous person in the house, while preventing Selia's ego from pushing the woman into a suicide dive to preserve her dignity.

More commotion echoed as he reached the kitchen again and dumped the boxes. Tiondel had grabbed Selia from behind and was carrying the thrashing woman out into the atrium, and Uniol only saw a flushed face from possibly being strangled and a disheveled pajama shirt on the smaller woman before she disappeared. Sharimara, however, was an entirely different story; Narrus had simply hugged her from the front in the way that humans tended to greet each other, while Corrianna - who had appeared out of nowhere - literally hung on the larger woman's back. It didn't seem to burden her at all, and Corrianna didn't even look like she was straining; it was as if they'd simply talked the volatile woman down after pulling her off of her potential victim. Jalfaren, the useless lout that he was, just stood in a corner and stared at Sharimara as if she was Elune herself.

"I'm cool, I'm cool," Sharimara sighed in a surprisingly calm voice.

Narrus let go of her, but gripped her sleeve roughly the way he'd do with another man brawling in the locker room (though Sharimara could easily rough house in a more violent way than him or Uniol). "Shari, you just tried to strangle her with her own ponytail!" he exclaimed, almost scolding her.

Not even flinching, she accepted the chastisement from just about the only person she'd be willing to hear it from. "I'm cool, I said I'm cool."

Corrianna slipped off of her back, appearing to be about the size of a child when pressed against her. "At least you didn't knock the food off of the counter," the smaller woman joked. Her eyes twinkled as she spoke, and Uniol would have been shocked had Sharimara not loosened up and laughed.

"Okay...I probably shouldn't have done that," the green eyed woman chuckled as if trying to strangle somebody wasn't a big deal.

Setting the boxes down to the side, Uniol walked over toward the group. "Shari, whatever she's saying is probably...well, stupid, I know-"

"Thank you!"

"-but this is still my mom's property. She's allowing us to stay here like a sort of trust between us all."

Staring at the food on the counter, Sharimara looked as if she was intentionally trying to avoid the gaze of three people reminding her that she'd overreacted and one person who wouldn't stop gawking. "You're right...you're right. I have to be the bigger woman, here." She closed her eyes and sighed dramatically; although she didn't come off as fake in the way that Selia did, she certainly appeared to be trying very hard to demonstrate her cooperation.

Corrianna took her by the hand and started pulling her out into the atrium. "Come on, let's use our words to explain how we feel and then make up over a game of 'raise the shoe.' You know, that one where both people have to sit back to back so they can't see if the other person-"

"Please don't make me partner with Selia for the shoe game. She raises her shoe every time even if her answer is actually negative."

"It's a bonding experience, now come on..." Their voices trailed off as they walked into the atrium, and for a few seconds Uniol waited in tense silence for another round of shouting between Tiondel's girlfriend and sister to erupt. When no such thing occured, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Narrus just leaned against the counter for a moment while chuckling to himself. "One crisis down," he laughed deeply.

Uniol pretending to wipe an imaginary bead of sweat from his long eyebrows. "Oh, don't say that...I've been trying so hard to make all of this work out for the weekend."

Rising and clapping Uniol on the shoulder before moving over to the trays of food, Narrus shook his head as if denying what he'd just said. "I only jest; you're doing a fine job as host. Now, come on; it's been a while since everybody ate those snacks. Should we just set up the actual meal at the same place?" he asked while picking up the first plate of still steaming chicken on vegetables.

"Yes, that sounds just fine. Where is Jalf?"

"He probably bailed when he realized there wasn't anything left to do in the kitchen except work. It's no great loss we can..." The sound of the front door opening cut off his sentence. "There are the other half of the sister brother quartet, along with...Karen, I think her name is. What did Corra say about their perimeter securing job?"

The two of them walked out into the atrium, skipping the group trying to reconcile the two unsuspecting pugilists and carrying the communal plates of food all the way over to the cushions near the front door. "Something about Jalf getting beaten up by robbers and Mister Montaha behaving in a strange way...we can ask them how it went now."

Uniol sighed once more, feeling the pressure of trying to host such a large group of people for the first time. "Ugh...it never ends. Why does Karen have leaves in her hair?"

As the two of them laid the food down, they were gradually joined by all eight other people who had reached the central atrium by then. The conversation was fast and busy, with people talking with their mouths full (elven propriety be damned on that night) and frequently switching discussion partners at random. Once they settled in and joked about Issinia's blessings and Navarion's wards (and Kirana's...well, moral support), Uniol found himself rather relaxed. Hosting his friends and loved ones was quite easy once they all stopped trying to strangle each other.

So engrossed were they that a number of things were forgotten. Corrianna forgot that she thoroughly disliked Selia; Selia forgot that Sharimara had just humiliated her in front of half the other guests; Sharimara forgot that Jalfaren kept trying to impress her with comments about his mad pyromancy skills (by ignoring him); and Uniol forgot all the stress he'd put upon himself about being a good host.

And all of them failed to notice two shadows passing in front of the doorway to the kitchen, creeping along unseen.

 **And so it begins...**


	9. Unknown

**A/N: chapter of the unknown narrator. The overwhelming majority of my stories are written from the third person limited perspective, so the attempt at third person omniscient here is a bit new for me.**

The back door of the lodge was pushed open, knocking billows of snow away. The snowstorm had already started to pass over the city of New Kel'Theril below, pelting the mountain and the lodge on top of it with snow. Two figures hurried out of the door, towels wrapped around them as they closed the door behind them and huddled together. Laughter wafted across the icy wind as the two of them sprinted over toward the trio of moonwells, jumping up and down and clicking their heels together along the way.

Despite the frigid weather outside, steam rose from the three moonwells. A natural spring of mineral water bubbled up from inside the mountain, providing all the sentinels who had ever been stationed there with a source of sustenance that was still mild in its overall vitamin content. Of course, the two revelers had no intention to simply drink the water.

Hopping over to the edge of one of the sacred pools, the two of them watched their reflections for a moment as they considered what they were about to do.

"Nobody saw us!" Thelios chortled as he stuck a finger into the holy water and drew an ethereal circle in the stardust particles floating around in it.

For absolutely no purpose at all, Henaia jumped up and down again. "Yeah, we totally otally tricked them! They probably think we're in the basement or something." She snapped her head to the side to look at him. "But we're not!"

The two of them threw their heads back and laughed maniacally as if they'd tied a little blonde human to train tracks before Henaia slid her bottom onto the edge of the moonwell. Though she thought herself some sort of temptress, she didn't quite know how to flirt properly and ended up just looking like she was squatting in the bushes instead. Thelios didn't care regardless, and swooped in to kiss the back of her neck.

"Somebody's feeling frisky!" she laughed while moving her head away to avoid the torture. She didn't quite know what that word meant, but it sounded like a cool thing to say. Thelios wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back over to him.

"I'm going to frisk you in a minute," he whispered into her ear. It was the longest sentence he'd used in quite some time, and he grinned at his own cleverness while pressing his lips against her earlobe.

She swooned, leaning back and forth as she both tried to avoid the torture and let herself dissolve in it. A mischevious look shone in his fel green eyes when she leaned away from him, and he let go of her waist entirely.

"Aaiiieeee!" she cried when she hit the warm water. With a splash, she fell under, and he stood there and watched her splash him back without even processing the logical conclusion that her towel had become wet and useless for shielding her from the cold when they returned to the lodge.

"You're a pusher!" she cried, her face a combination of anger, amusement and arousal. He'd learned months ago that if there was one thing she liked, it was being thrown into swimming pools. Who didn't like that?

When she splashed him back, he was entirely unprepared. A huge arc of warm water soaked his jacket and the pajamas underneath, leaving him warm at first, then cold but not the whole time. She quickly hugged herself and disappeared most of the way beneath the water in order to shield herself from the weather, as well as to hide the way her shirt stuck to her body. She failed, and when he raised an eyebrow at her the way he only did in private, she knew he'd noticed.

"Whaaaaaat?" she asked giddily, her cheeks already beginning to flush.

He leaned further over the edge of the moonwell, his arousal barely concealed by his plaid pajama pants. "You know what you need," he said with a suggestive wink as he stepped into the well while still wearing his clothes.

"Thelios! You're going to get soaked!" she chortled while covering her mouth with both hands.

Displaying a quick thinking that didn't seem like him at all, he finally spoke a mostly coherent sentence. "You're about to get soaked," he purred at her, which could have been extremely dirty or extremely playful depending on how he meant it. Reaching for her once more, he lifted her up and held her to him, and she wrapped her legs around his waist.

The two of them kissed and caressed in the moonwell, ignoring all of their surroundings even as the snowstorm began to pass directly over them. Every snowflake that fell near the warm water melted in midair, created a sort of warm, localized drizzle that pelted them as the stripped each other's clothes off. As the volume of the howling wind increased, so did their moans and gasps as they took turns pushing each other to the edge and then dancing back again, enjoying the outdoor secrecy provided by their surroundings. Even when visibility dropped and the lodge itself disappeared from view, the two of them continued their wicked game, never hesitating until the wind became particularly rough.

"Thelios...Thelios wait," Henaia said while pushing herself away from him.

For a few seconds, he continued kissing up the side of her face, not even realizing that she'd stopped responding. "Hmmm mmph," he mumbled through puckered lips.

She almost gave in, finding the sensation of their bodies pressed together in the warm water almost intoxicating, but she came to her sensed when another gust of wind whipped through their hair. "Thelios, for real. I think I heard something - ah!"

In the middle of her sentence, he slid one of his hands lower, catching her off guard and temporarily removing what semblance of coherent thought her brain was capable of forming. "That's the sound of love knocking at your door!" he purred, not so much becoming coherent himself as misquoting an intensely annoying dwarven bar hymn they'd heard about two months ago in Dustwallow Marsh.

Twisted and turned, she found herself torn between throwing herself at him and ruining the moment by pushing him away again. In the end, the decision was made for her when a barely discernible white figure rose up behind him in the whiteness of the snowstorm.

"Thelios! THELIOS!"

"That's right, baby...just how you like it ick khurrlhakh khak khak!"

A pair of white hands reached around from behind, yanking Thelios backward as Henaia found herself dropped into the depths of the moonwell and struggling to stand up again. The blond blood elf surfer turned around and hit his assailant hard enough to send the white figure tumbling into the snow, a combination of machismo and horniness tainting his fel corrupted eyes.

"Thelios look out!"

Before he could react, another white hand reached out from the snow, grabbing for his throat. From the angle he'd titled his head at, he literally couldn't see the hand and arm at all until it had already pushed its fingernail into the soft indent where his neck met his collar bones, sending a jet stream of blood gushing out and tainting the moonwell.

"Oooooohhhhhh my gooooooooddddd!" Henaia screamed helplessly into the screeching wind as another white hand reached out, and the unseen attacker scratched open the artery in the crook of Thelios' left arm.

In the end, it was the hunk from Silvermoon's vascularity that proved to be his undoing. Blood quickly seeped out of both wounds, and his last attempt to hit the phantom attacker merely caused him to slip and fall beneath the surface of the moonwell, bleeding out into the holy water.

"No, no no no no no! Not me!" Henaia cried as she tried to jump over the edge of the moonwell. Her shins battered the stone edge, causing her to cry again as she tumbled hard to the ground on throbbing, jelly like legs.

Cold...it was the most overwhelming sensation she felt. The snow against her naked body felt so cold.

Blood coursed through her veins at a hundred miles per minute, nearly overriding the intense physical pain in every square inch of her skin. Snow clung to her limbs and the entire left side of her body, stinging her like needles jabbed into her pores. The wind immediately caused her body to shake violently, turning her ears and nose numb in a matter of seconds as she sneezed so hard she went cross eyed. A snarl from right behind her sent her running into the blizzard.

"Heeeeeelp!" she screamed at the top of her lungs into the wind. Unfortunately, the cold air she sucked in to take a deep breath before hand left her lungs raw, and her absolute loudest scream came out at about the same volume as a normal speaking voice, lost in the harsh wind.

Her body shook so much that she couldn't even run straight as she stumbled around like a headless chicken in the snow. Unable to see where she was going, she had only just started to feel a sudden comfortable warmth deep inside of her body when she lost her footing. Her heart too warm for her pulse to increase, she accepted the chilly blast of air as she fell, tumbling off the edge of the mountain in her blindness.

The snowstorm continued to blow, waxing and waning as the back yard of the sentinel lodge sat empty. The nature waters of the spring inside the mountain quickly diluted most of the blood from the dead body floating in one of the moonwells, once again leaving the entire area quiet aside from the wind.


	10. Sharimara 1

**A/N: she is the iron hand of justice!**

Sharimara flopped over on one of the cushions in the atrium of the house, pulling a blanket over her as everyone felt the 'itis' - the post meal lethargy once they'd devoured all the chicken and steamed vegetables.

"I feel like a beached whale," she groaned while stretching out on a long, rectangular cushion that seemed perfectly shaped for her.

Corrianna was already standing next to Uniol, the two hosts drowsy from a day of travel and half a night of eating, joking and playing couples games that involved shoe signals. "What a coincidence, because you also look-"

"Eh? Eh? What's that, miss pepper nose!"

Everyone except Selia laughed at the joke, and Corrianna balled up her fists and growled playfully. "Hey, don't make fun of me! That really burned!" she protested, her eyes still a dimmer shade of glowing silver due to the spice induced tears she'd cried for a good deal of time earlier.

"Seriously, I've heard of squirting milk out of your nose when laughing, but how did a chunk of red pepper shoot from your mouth, up through your sinuses and out from your nostrils?"

"Hrrraaa!" Corrianna squealed while stomping her foot in protest. She was the smallest person in the room, so it came off as more comical than anything. This time, even Selia snorted a laugh. "I'm going to bed now, but don't blame me if there are red chilies in your breakfast cereal!"

"I love you too, Corra," Sharimara taunted as Corrianna and Uniol bid everyone good night and walked up the ramp. Issinia and Narrus stood up immediately thereafter. "Seriously, Issa? It's barely even midnight."

Her older sister waved her hand dismissively, and Sharimara knew that the priestess would have none of the amiable bickering their cousin would tolerate. "Not all of us still live at home, Shari. We actually have regular sleeping patterns."

Navarion snickered, and Kirana followed suit in an annoying way that made Sharimara want to punch the woman almost as much as she did Jalfaren. Forcing herself to focus on people she actually liked, she rolled her eyes in the most comically derisive way possible. "Yes, I'm sure it's terribly difficult to wake up in the morning and work four hours days at the temple," she replied, knowing the right buttons to push.

"What! Shari! The temple demands the utmost dedication of its devotees!"

"Far be it from me to question your schedule," she replied nonchalantly, knowing just how to tease her dignified yet easily offended big sister.

What she hadn't been prepared for was a genuinely immature, out of character retort from the priestess of the moon. "You farted in the tub last week! We all heard you because it shook the floorboards!" Issinia blurted out, earning a raucous round of laughter from everyone, even Narrus, as they stared wide eyed at the clergywoman making fart jokes.

"What?! Issa, that doesn't have anything to do with anything!"

"Please control the amount of red chilies you consume!" Issinia shot back again, quickly grabbing Narrus and hurrying up the ramp with him lest she linger for too long and leave herself open for a counterattack.

The rest of the group continued to laugh for a bit, especially when Narrus almost slid down the ramp from laughing so much as well. It was honestly one of the more pleasant moments of the night, and a good way for the surprisingly light hearted dinner conversation to wind down.

Much to Sharimara's surprise, Selia had grumbled an apology to her for intentionally provoking her into the previous scuffle in the kitchen. Tiondel had obviously given the woman some very honest words for the first time, and she felt a sense of smug satisfaction when Selia pouted for the first half of the meal. Normally, Sharimara was angered by the mere sight of the woman sitting on her brother's lap, but knowing that he'd finally put his foot down about Selia's constant antagonism of the family, Sharimara found their closeness much easier to accept.

Kirana, on the other hand, was seriously getting on Sharimara's nerves. Although the inexplicably red headed night elf had been almost disgustingly kind to everyone so far, she was still an outsider in Sharimara's view; her mother's attitude still reigned supreme in certain matters.

Despite her biracial heritage, Sharimara was still very much a night elf when it came to how she (as well as Issinia and even Corrianna) dealt with her brothers. The female led society's ideas influenced her heavily, and thus she always felt a sort of defensive tension when strange women tried to approach Hearthglen men. Her attitude was probably the exact opposite of how many jungle troll families would behave, and undoubtedly Sharimara had inherited many traits from her Darkspear father (her tendency to go berserk when pushed, for one), but on this point she was very matriarchal and never felt the need to apologize to her brothers for behaving as such.

So when Kirana kept touching Navarion's arm when she spoke, the simple act caused Sharimara to grind her molar teeth together every time. Navarion often exhausted her due to his personality being that of a penitent rake; he was handsome and had no shortage of women fawning over him, and his tendency to bask in attention all that attention like a child seeking reassurance and approval irritated her to no end. Of course, Sharimara had been with her share of boyfriends, but that was different. Totally different. Because of reasons.

"Hey," she spoke up in Zandali when Kirana started to lean on him. While the others likely noticed that she'd begun to talk in a language that only she and her two brothers understood, most of them continued on in their conversations. "Come sit by me," she more or less ordered her oldest brother.

Shooting her a skeptical look, Navarion gave her the typical resistance he showed to the youngest, if most hardheaded, member of their family. "So you're giving orders now?"

"Stop responding to her and come sit by me," she repeated, causing Tiondel to roll his eyes.

Navarion looked at Kirana and then back to his sister. "If I just get up and sit next to you for no reason, then she'll feel left out and will think you don't want her here, and everybody else is going to feel uncomfortable. There's no reason to create drama."

"You don't even know who she is."

At that, he laughed deeply and openly, irritating her even more. "When has that ever stopped me before, Shari?" he chuckled.

"I'm being serious."

"No, I'm being serious. Del negotiated an apology from his girlfriend for instigating a fight with you; if you instigate something with this lady now, you're going to just create drama and look bad in front of Corra and everybody."

"Come sit by me."

Jalfaren had purposely seated himself at an angle where he could constantly steal glances at Sharimara's feet, which was part of why she'd covered herself in a blanket. "Nobody can understand what you guys are saying," the highborne mumbled.

Tiondel inserted himself into the conversation, speaking Zandali even more fluently than them both. "Shari, I know the lady somewhat; she's from the same village as this one," he said, indicating Selia without saying her name so as to keep the discussion private. "She's a bit naïve and sort of unexposed to the seedier elements of society, but I don't think she's trying to steal our brother away from us."

"Why use euphemisms?" Navarion asked rhetorically, and Sharimara already knew he was about to piss her off without even realizing it. "Shari, I'm an adult and a lot older than you. I date women. I might or might not want to date this one, but I'm not doing anything by finding out."

She narrowed her eyes, finding his refusal to conform to the standards she, their sisters and cousin felt was better for him to be irritating. "She's a stranger," Sharimara muttered, finding her resentment of Kirana growing even when the woman did nothing other than smile and stare at Navarion's goatee as he spoke.

As if he were wearing a set of conjured armor, her barbs bounced off of him ineffectively. "Everybody is a stranger until you get to know them," he replied so nonchalantly that he didn't even seem defiant. That casual attitude only bothered her even more.

"Nobody can understand what you guys are-"

"Shut the hell up, Jalf," Sharimara snapped quickly in Darnassian before switching to Zandali again. "You don't even like this woman. You kept trying to find ways to escape the conversation with her when we were trying to unpack; I know that look in your eyes."

"I wonder what you guys are saying," Selia asked Tiondel in Darnassian. She hugged a little closer to him, though Sharimara had already gotten over that unlikeable potential sister in law years ago. The current object of her ire, however, was brand new.

"So come sit by me."

"Shari, we're not teenagers any more. It isn't socially appropriate for you to antagonize all the women I'm with."

 _Oh no you didn't_ , she thought to herself. The mention of the sheer number of women her oldest brother had been with pushed her from irritation to anger. "I'm going to get some fresh air," she huffed while throwing the blanket to the floor.

Kirana stopped staring at Navarion momentarily and glanced between him and his posed off youngest sister. "What's wrong? Shari, do you want me to go with you-"

"Hey, hey, things are fine right here," Navarion interjected in Darnassian, narrowly saving the unsuspecting woman from a terrible thrashing. "She'll be fine on her own...but hey, Shari, the snow is starting to come down heavy out there."

Rushing to put her winter coat and boots on by the door, she didn't even bother looking back. "Somebody needs to check if your wards caught anything. I won't be long." Too upset to even look at him, she promptly walked out the front door and closed it behind her just as Kirana was about to ask another pointless question.

The lodge was wider than it was long, blocking her view of the cliffside behind. In all honesty, she didn't feel like walking out into the cold to check the wards, but her oldest brother had annoyed her without even trying, which frustrated her even more. Marching through the thick snow on the ground and the increasingly heavy mist of flakes in the air, Sharimara walked out into the mass of trees on the top of the mountain. The area was much larger than it had looked from down in the city; even with her long, batlike ears, it was impossible to hear everything that echoed between the trees. Visibility was already low due to the density of the numerous pines, and the white snowfall lowered that visibility even more.

Cursing under her breath, she marched to the spot where Issinia and Navarion had told the others they both read blessings of Elune and set up her brother's voodoo wards. It was an odd combination of night elf and jungle troll traditions, but then again so was their family. Their perfect, close knit little family.

Why wouldn't Navarion just...act right? Her two other brothers lacked the lascivious behavior of the oldest. Even if Tiondel had ended up with someone like Selia, they were at least in a stable relationship. As annoying as Selia was, she was still technically a village girl from a very traditional grove in the Stonetalon Mountains; aside from being antagonistic, there wasn't anything technically wrong with her. And Zengu, the middle brother, was a virgin who recently got married to another virgin had held a third grader's view on relationships and the world, which was exactly what Sharimara liked to pretend all her family members thought like.

But Navarion...he'd been with dozens of women. Possible a few hundred. The thought disgusted her, especially when she realized that there were likely even more that the family didn't know about. What made it worse was the fact that the women he hung around were often rogues or other dark horses, almost like Sharimara herself. And while she had zero regrets about her own path in life, it wasn't what she wanted for Navarion; she wanted a good girl, some naïve thing who would change him and convince him to cut his hair short and wear sweater vests. Which Kirana sort of seemed liked...but that wasn't the point!

Goddess...was she actually arguing with her own thoughts in her head? She must have looked like a crazy person marching around the woods-

"Help! I hear somebody coming...please help!" the voice of a male goblin shouted in Common through the snow.

Sharimara froze; Everlook was a long ways away. There were a few goblins down in New Kel'Theril...but they had no reason to be up there. Crouching low to the ground, she found the sky dark enough for her to shadowmeld despite all the white snow shimmering beneath the starlight; there was no telling if this was an ambush or a lost traveler in legitimate need of help.

"She disappeared...I just saw a huge woman walking around, and she disappeared!"

Another person, a male human from the sound, answered him. "Maybe it was a sentinel, just keep...oh Light, there's a fox! There's a fox! I can't move!"

Although foxes were nothing to be frightened of, a lost traveler might be afraid if they couldn't move. But Sharimara knew her brother's stasis trap wards well: they only trapped people whose intentions were negative. If these people were trapped, then they weren't there for good reasons.

Creeping closer to the sound, she was able to see what had happened. One of Navarion's wards, a bundle of glowing sticks with a cursed turtle shell hanging from it, emitted pulses of voodoo magic through the ground. Four people - two goblin men, a goblin woman and a male human - were all pinned to the ground, unable to escape the clutches of the stasis trap. They wore the simple fur coats of travelers, but the swords they'd dropped ostensibly when the trap sprung spoke differently. More footsteps from behind her set her on edge, until she heard the familiar annoying voice of a certain highborne creep.

"Yaaa! Go away, fox!" Jalfaren cried nervously while chasing the harmless animal away with a stick. He was wearing his winter coat, and looked as if he'd been running. The group of intruders all looked relieve.

"Oh thank god! That fox was going to eat us alive! Could you please free us, kind sir?" the lead goblin asked while straining his neck to look up.

All five of them screamed when Sharimara broke her shadowmeld, which from their perspective must have looked like she materialized out of thin air (which she as actually capable of doing anyway). "Not so fast," she cautioned Jalfaren just as he was about to tamper with the ward. "First of all, what the fel are you doing out here?" she asked the highborne stalker pointedly.

Undaunted, Jalfaren suddenly tried to puff up his skinny bird chest as if proud of himself. "Well, I know how dangerous these woods can be, after...ahem...I braved the ruffians out here myself-"

"Right, after they kicked your ass and my sister had to heal you."

"-so Navarion and Del thought it would be a great idea if I accompanied you out here. Navarion especially, he said he was worried you'd get lonely."

"He! What! Arrggh hhhrrrmmmffffff..." She stopped herself before she turned into a growling mess in full view of the four intruders, and wiped her face in her hands before turning back to them. "All of you are armed, so you're obviously not here to ask to borrow a cup of sugar. Tell me what you came for or I'm leaving you out here."

While the lead goblin's companions all buried their faces in the snow to avoid answering, he fessed up easily. "Alright, look, bear with me here. We knew there were guests and so we wanted to try and steal your mounts. But we had to take a longer route around old man Montanha's cabin, and we were followed. This is very very important - we were trying to steal from you, but you need to know that something else is up here. And we're all at risk now."

Sharimara tensed up, her anger at the would be burglars waning rather quickly. "First of all, we don't have mounts here with us. Second of all, that the four of you would try to rob all of us is laughable. Third of all...what kind of something else? Tell me honestly and I might just let you go without reporting you to the sentinels."

A merchant's eyes lit up at her, and she knew that bargaining with him was the right choice. "We didn't see it, but it's kind of skinny. Skinny and white, and very very loud. It chased us for a good bit of distance, but when this magical trap sprang, it backed off. This was literally three minutes ago or less; I'm surprised you didn't hear all of the commotion." He wiggled for a bit, and the ward sent out another pulse of voodoo. "Let us up and we'll help you drive this thing away. Our lives are your bargaining chip, which is a pretty sure thing."

"Your loyalty is coerced, and thus isn't in doubt as long as we're under threat. But I can't pull you out of that; your arm would be ripped right out of the socket if I tried. If it's any consolation, then whatever chased you here will also be trapped before it can even hurt you, so you're safer where you are now than anywhere else. Let me go get my brother. He established the ward, and he can deactivate it. I'll be fast." Bending over, she took up the rifle of one of the goblins and the broadsword of the human, which felt like a short sword in her hands. "Jalf, take this rifle. If the thing that chased them comes back, kill it. Don't abandon them; they're robbers, but we're not executioners."

For a few seconds, Jalfaren was still mesmerized by the view of her butt he'd been given when she'd bent over, and she was about to bitch slap him before he finally snapped to his senses. "What? Me?" he asked, pointing to himself like the dumb character in a comic strip.

Not giving him the chance to negotiate, she already began to run back toward the lodge. "You're some sort of awesome highborne dude, right? Prove your mettle," she shouted back to him as she ran.

She was already a good distance away from the lodge; the vastness of the mountaintop was uncanny, and she was forced to slow down by the lowered visibility. She wasn't even halfway back by the time she heard the sound of an exhausted person screaming.


	11. Navarion

**A/N: this is the part where I try to manipulate perspectives...this one is through Navarion's eyes. The notion that truth can be subjective is easy to accept, but demonstration of that is a little bit more difficult. I hope this and chapter seven (and seventeen, to give you all an ambiguous preview) appear logically consistent with that subjectivity.**

 **For anybody who's been wondering why a lout like Navarion is suddenly behaving like a gentleman, there's a Deviant Art exclusive story as a supplement on my account over there. Search in my literature gallery for "Madrieda's Lament," a four chapter side story which took place shortly before this one, and his attitude might make more sense.**

Sprawled out on the cushions by the front door, Navarion enjoyed another hearty laugh with the others after they'd sent Jalfaren on his mission of irritation. Tiondel had almost felt guilty for sending the annoying creep after their youngest sibling, but the way that the highborne was so oblivious to Sharimara's complete and total lack of interest was too funny to pass up on.

The four of them kept their tones hushed as they celebrated their practical joke, though Kirana appeared to be conflicted.

"Guys, maybe that was a little mean...Shari is really bothered by Jalf, and Jalf is...well, kind of-"

"A lovable loser?" Selia chortled.

"I mean, I know he's kind of a tag along, but perhaps he just needs to be told what is or isn't appropriate behavior," Kirana reasoned. Navarion quieted down a bit, unsure of whether she actually believed that or not.

"He's like what, twenty five years old or something? He really ought to know by now that ogling our sister from the far side of a room is socially inappropriate behavior. I don't feel bad for him."

Kirana still frowned even as she continued to chuckle deep in her throat. "Well, I kind of feel bad for Shari, too; it must be tiring to have someone you're not that interested chasing after you all the time," she sighed.

 _You have no idea_ , Navarion thought, though he almost felt guilty for the mental comment.

Tiondel just shrugged. "Meh, we probably are going to end up irritating Shari more than was necessary, but she'll get over it. And she'll probably get even before the weekend is over."

"Here's to hoping she doesn't," Selia said while tipping an imaginary wine glass.

There was a measure of real spite in her tone that Navarion didn't like, but he and Tiondel had gotten along so well compared to the rest of their siblings in part because they always refrained from comments or advice. He held his tongue and tried to excuse his future sister in law by reminding himself that her considerable ego was still bruised from not only having lost a fight with Sharimara, but also having been pressured by everybody to apologize afterward instead of the other way around. Letting it slide, he tried to take the focus of the conversation away from his sister.

"How dd you all meet that guy, anyway? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you shouldn't have brought him here. He's creepy, but not a pervert as far as I can tell."

His brother and the two women all looked back and forth for a minute, truly perplexed by the question.

Tiondel spoke first. "Kirana, didn't you invite him along?" he asked, though by the tone of his voice he almost seemed not to believe it.

"I thought you invited him? He didn't tell me that directly, but he sort of hinted at it."

"It wasn't me," Selia said derisively. "You've got to be joking, did Jalf actually invite himself along and trick us into letting him stay at Uniol's family lodge? What a loser!"

"Be nice, he's your friend originally, right?" Kirana asked.

"No way, Del introduced me to him!"

"Wait, you mean that time at the the archer practice range?" Tiondel asked after mulling over the matter in his head for a moment. "No, I was bringing him back to see you about those arrows he needed. Your cousin told me that Jalf owed him some money."

Selia's eyes widened like saucers. "Del, mp the guy that owed my cousin money back then was Jadefern, not Jalfaren!" she exclaimed. "That means...wait a minute, that means we knew this guy by accident...because we thought he was someone else?"

Kirana was already laughing, leaning against Navarion in a way he found a bit clingy and unnecessary. "He basically forced his way into our little group and snuck onto this trip! Aww...he must be a really lonely guy!"

"A lonely guy who stares like a monkey at my sister," Navarion grumbled, his patience and sympathy for the man suddenly decreased.

"Either way, he's here, and if he causes any trouble then Shari will set him straight. And it was a cruel joke, but she's the queen of cruel jokes anyway, so it all balances out in the end." Tiondel lifted Selia up off his lap and fought off a yawn. "I think I'm going to go turn in. We had a long trip, and there are still two days ahead of us."

"Only a day and a half, technically," Selia said, yawning in reaction to his yawn. "Thanks for just tossing me aside, by the way," she added, more than a hint of resentment apparent in her voice again.

Tiondel looked like he was about to respond, but when she actually pouted, he refrained. Navarion found it confusing: that wasn't her normal personality at all. Perhaps the fight with Sharimara had taken more of the wind out of her sails than they'd previously thought. Although Navarion never commented, he was as bothered by Selia's constant disrespect toward the family just as much as the others. He felt confused by her demeanor, but not sympathetic.

Putting his arm around her shoulder, Tiondel kissed her on the temple and led her up the ramp. "It was a gentle removal, not a toss," he chuckled while hugging her close. "Good night, guys," he called over his shoulder just as the two of them disappeared upstairs.

"Yeah, you too," Navarion chuckled back, finding the situation of Selia quite amusing. He relaxed back against the cushion he'd been sitting on.

That sense of relaxation melted away rather quickly when he realized that he and Kirana were along together. Though he played it cool, he could feel himself tensing up as he felt Kirana lean a little bit closer toward him, resting her chin against her hand as if they were having an intimate fireside chat.

"So..." she practically hummed while turning to face him entirely on the long cushion they shared.

When she didn't add anything to the sentence, his mind worked rapid fire to find a way for them to _not_ be alone together. "So...I don't know about you, but I'm thirsty. I think I'll grab some of that iced tea in the kitchen...do you want me to bring you anything?" he asked. She'd been leaning so closely to him that he had to slide backward off of the cushion and almost fell over onto the rug.

To his chagrin, she stood up next to him. "Aw, that's sweet, but let me go with you," she replied while moving in a circle around the cushion to walk next to him. She glanced around the atrium as they walked, as if she was checking to see whether or not they were alone. The thought worried him a bit more, but she interrupted those thoughts soon enough when she started practically walking into him on the way to the kitchen. "Your sister Shari is really neat. She's funny when she's talking to you in Zul'mamwe."

The unintentional humor especially disrupted his train of thought, and he reeled while trying to find a polite way to put some distance between the two of them. "Heh, it's called Zandali. But yeah, Shari is a fascinating person." When they reached the door to the kitchen, he decided not to let her pass through first; behaving politely might make her become even clingier, and even if she was nice he could still feel the sense of mild panic at the thought of someone who seemed like the 'good girl' type becoming attached to him.

"Here, it's just inside the cold storage," he said while walking across the kitchen. "Somebody left about half a dozen cups out on the counter."

"Right, take these." She handed him two of the wooden drinken vessels and then sat up on the counter in the middle of the kitchen. He could practically feel her eyes on the back of his head as he tried to find the silver container of iced tea in the cold storage.

Once he fished the container out, he noticed her staring at his wrist again. "You still never told me whose bracelet that is," she said, a sort of playfulness in her tone that clashed with the pang of melancholy that her mentioning it sent waving through his mind.

Trying his best to play it off, he just shut the cold storage and started pouring them the iced tea. "I did tell you. It's a memento. It's just a simple story that I'd rather not talk about." Hoping that his terse response would shut the topic down, he kept his back to her as he put the pitcher back into the cold storage. Her silence was deafening, and when he turned around he was hit by the extent of the hurt on her face. "Hey, uh...you iced tea is ready," he forced himself to chuckle while trying to hand her the drink.

For a few seconds she just continued to stare at the floor, crestfallen, as he held the cup out to her. Eventually she took it from him, but the way she just laid it down next to her only added to the miserable, depressed image she projected. "Thanks," she murmured before resting her hands on the edge of the counter and sulking again.

Navarion knew that look well. Only rarely did he see it, in part because he'd spent much of his adult life as an unrepentant womanizer. His aim had been to please women and himself before disappearing into the night, avoiding the uncomfortable goodbye entirely by always slipping away before they woke up. Testosterone and wanderlust aside, age had tempered his behavior. Not his own age; even being only half elf, he still expected to live nearly half a millennium. His parents, however, were probably in the last decade of their lives or near it, and the changes in them reminded him that he hadn't grown up. In his eyes, he was stunted in his personal growth, behaving like a foolish eighteen year old into his thirties. For sure, he'd caused many women to wake up alone and bear the expression that Kirana bore then in the kitchen, but he'd never had to see it, nor had he ever caused it without actually doing anything.

Feeling guilty over a single sentence, he set his own cup on the counter behind him and stood next to her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to blow you off. It's just a sensitive topic...the memento is from someone who's dead."

Though her ears continued to droop, she did tilt her head toward him without actually looking at him. "You...lost somebody, then?" she asked quietly.

Before he spoke, he glanced around the kitchen to make sure that they were actually alone. This was a secret he hadn't told a single soul in the family or out of it; the only person who knew was him, an old acquaintance of his mother's and a certain ditzy dryad who'd probably forgotten the story. The feeling was still raw in his chest; she hadn't been his first love, but she was always near to his heart as the one who not so much got away as the one who was pulled away from him by circumstance. But the way that Kirana slowly tilted her head up more to meet him with sad yet curious eyes tempted him to both remove that sadness in a way he hadn't been able to for someone else and to talk out loud about what had happened.

"Yes...I've lost a few people. But...this one was special," he said in a low voice while playing with the bracelet on his wrist.

Displaying little restraint, she reached forward and felt it between her fingers. "Did she pass in while the two of you were together?"

"No, actually. Many years after the fact. I was only eighteen years old when we were together, and we split up after three months. I received word that she'd passed a few months a go now...that would make it fifteen years, maybe, but she's my only ex who I split up with on good terms. That made accepting it a...a lot more difficult."

Though she continued to hang on to his wrist, she looked up at him with a little more clarity. "Did she mean the world to you?"

Like his father, Navarion was a shadow hunter: a voodoo warrior considered one of the lore keepers of troll tribes. He could commune with the spirits in a given area and even possessed a very latent, but existent, aptitude for necromancy. The spirits sometimes spoke to him and sometimes left him alone, and sometimes he simply bullied them into talking. This time, however, they invaded his ear and ticked his brain, unsettling him as he was given a single coherent message:

 _Something is wrong_.

Guilt or no, he suddenly felt very uncomfortable in his skin. Under normal circumstances, he would have possessed the clarity of mind to ask them if Kirana was the reason or something else. With her oddly piercing gaze, however, and the upswell of sadness and pain at remembering the loss of his first memorable love, he found himself unable to focus. All he knew was that something was wrong, and he suddenly felt like he wanted to just get up and run out of there.

"I...she...I'm...not comfortable," he whispered while pulling his wrist away from her.

Partially hurt but also partially...irritated, if he wasn't mistaken, Kirana slipped down off the counter and stepped toward him. "What's wrong?" she asked while reaching for him again.

Navarion took her by the hands and pressed them together, doing his best to keep her away from him. Her frown looked like sadness but her arched brow seemed distinctly negative. "I don't know, I...Kirana, can we not talk about this?"

"You're not the only one who's lost people, you know!" she retorted, visibly upset and offended yet somehow still defiant. "You're not the only one who was pulled from a lover's arms before they were ready! I thought you'd understand!"

 _What does that have to do with anything_? he thought to himself. He reached for the spirits again but found them either absent or his mind unfocused, and his guilt was mixed with frustration at his inability to control the conversation and the sudden absence of his siblings. "I do understand that feeling, and I'm sorry if you're hurt-"

"You're damn right I'm hurt! Do you have any idea what it feels like to have your other half disappear on you? Do you?"

"I...argh...Kirana, the whole point was that I'm the one who felt that way and you're just now telling me that you experienced the same thing."

Pouting almost angrily like a child, she tried to work her fingers around his and press herself closer to him again. "His name was Melchior," she whispered, tilting her head upward as she closed the gap in between them.

 _We barely know each other, why are you opening up to me so easily_ , he thought to himself again. Alarm bells rang and competed with the sound of the blame he'd heaped upon himself for upsetting her, and the pressure was on once again. "Look, Kirana..." he sighed, but then stopped himself when she whimpered and stared directly into his eyes like a wounded animal. "Her name was Madrieda," he sighed a second time.

Slowly but surely, Kirana pulled against his hands to draw herself to him, and he already knew what was happening. He'd spent enough nights with wounded women before to recognize when he was being used to fill a sort of emptiness or absence. Ten years ago, Kirana would have been exactly the kind of naïve, sincere village girl he'd have preferred to take advantage of. But this wasn't ten years ago, and he hoped he wasn't still that sort of guy.

"Listen...I can sense that you're hurt, but-"

Her eyes flew open twice as wide and she practically threw herself into him. "The basement! The basement! What was that!" she whispered, suddenly quite afraid at the thump coming from below them.

This time, he was unrepentant when he roughly shoved her off of him. If there was some sort of wild animal or burglar down there, he didn't want her clinging to him and restricting his movement. "Shh...it's probably nothing, don't worry," he whispered back, though he could sense her skepticism when he crouched low and took a few steps toward the basement door. When he lifted his shirt and pulled his pistol from the holster, she stared at the weapon in awe.

"You have a gun?" she asked, not seeming to understand the humorous irony in the question.

"Shh. Stay close," he whispered as he crept over toward the door to the basement. "But **don't** grab onto me again."

The stone stairwell leading downward was dark, but that mattered little to his silver, nocturnal eyes. Step by step he descended, pistol braced in both hands as he practically knelt rather than walked down the stairs. A different type of tension mounted, and he sincerely hoped that he wouldn't have to blast a lost frostsabre or wolverine in the face with only two seconds notice. Hopefully it would just be overturned boxes or something...

Cold. That's the first thing he noticed: the basement was extremely cold. Though it did have its fair share of side doors and three hallways, all those doors were closed and he just saw the larger central room of the basement level of the building. There were lots of dirty clothes and bandages and an inordinate amount of sentinel underwear strewn about, but otherwise things looked normal.

Except for the open passage at the top of the ceiling, near the ground level. The wooden window had been left open, and the cold air and a bit of snow wafted inside. "See? This is all it was," Navarion said as he walked across the room and slid the wooden passage to the outside closed again. "This thing just fell open. It's closed snugly now." He turned around and immediately found Kirana standing right up against him again.

"I always feel safe with you, Navarion," she said while hugging him.

 _Always? I just met you._ "I...uh...you're welcome," he said nervously while pretending that he needed to shove her off in order to reholster his pistol.

Kirana was persistent, and dodging her advances once they were alone in the basement was a far more difficult task than it was in the kitchen. And in their proverbial back and forth dance down there, they both failed to notice the two shadows passing behind them and moving upstairs.


	12. Selia

**A/N: as was probably obvious, the chapters are sectioned mostly by narrator and only very loosely by time. Here we're jumping over to Selia's perspective, which I hope will provide another sort of interesting difference in ways of seeing.**

Selia folded her arms in front of her as they ascended the ramp to the upper floors. Her mind was awash with ways she could best demonstrate her disappointment to Tiondel, always preferring the subtle and the indirect rather than a method so crass as the spoken word. He put an arm around her shoulder and tried to hold her close as they walked, which of course gave her the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how she specifically wasn't cooperating, but that was too easy. She felt the need for something a little more blunt.

At least Kirana seemed to be enjoying herself...how Navarion managed to attract women, Selia would never understand. A man who had that fire in him was attractive, but a man who strayed was infuriating. In Tiondel, she felt that she'd found the best of both worlds: physically an elf, mentally with more personality and passion but without the wandering eyes and hands that the men of other races often possessed. Leave Kirana to find yet another one of the typical dogs she brought home; Selia was happy with someone who saved that fire for her.

Of course, the downside was that she often got burned. Tiondel's passion came from their father, as did his more patriarchal attitude; his behavior didn't match that of the Kaldorei males she'd grown up with at all, and their racial similarities belied the vast cultural differences they often encountered. Once their relationship got serious, Selia found that her friendships with all men had to end; Tiondel was very much a troll in that regard, and had spent a few days in jail at Stonetalon after beating people up for chatting with her too friendily (she'd kept his jail time a secret from his family for him, even). His temper impassioned their life but also exhausted her, especially when his machismo prevented him from doing things she'd asked him to do.

That was one of their major sticking points: she'd grown up in a matriarchal society, and realized when dating him how much she took for granted. Things she'd seen her father doing for her mother and her brother doing for her sisters in law were her definition of 'normal,' thus delivering her a great shock when she found that Tiondel was the polar opposite. She had been born after the end of immortality, and thus had a father that was at home much of the time rather than slumbering in the Emerald Dream. The old druid would always go to her mother, his huntress, to politely discuss with her beforehand if he wanted to spend half a night out with his other friends at their gatherings or a Cenarion Circle communion. Mother's approval or disapproval was never questioned, just as it was generally understood that Selia's brothers were closer to their wives and their mothers in law than to the family.

Tiondel was just...a troll. If he wanted to hang out with his friends, she simply wouldn't see him for a few hours. If she asked him for a back massage, he'd have the audacity to expect one in return. And if he decided that he wanted to eat a different type of food for dinner than her, he'd simply prepare it for himself without telling her and eat in the kitchen instead of sitting on a mat like a proper night elf should. None of that behavior should have been shocking since there had been humans living in the village where she came from, but it was shocking from a person who looked like a night elf on the outside. While she felt it perhaps disrespectful to apply the term 'disobedient' to another adult, she didn't quite know how to phrase her source of frustration with the man. And so, like much of her feelings regarding their situation, she had to vent in ways other than direct speech.

"Hey...we're here," he said once they reached the second floor, where she would be staying. "Don't force yourself to wake up early, alright? We'll have plenty of time to enjoy our stay here for the next two days."

The two of them stood on the open air hallway - more of a loft than anything - that formed the second floor as they stood near the room she shared with Henaia. "So I need to sleep and wake up according to the dictates of the Hearthglen family, now?" she asked rhetorically, refusing to look up at him.

Anger at Sharimara's insolence still stung her, as did the memory of everybody seeing her be so easily overpowered and tossed around like a rag doll in the cave woman's hands. Was Tiondel so dense that he didn't even understand how embarrassing that was?

"Selia, it's just a piece of advice so we can all rest up well enough. I want us all to be happy, okay?" Slick as always, he cupped the back of her head and ran his thumb behind her ear. But she knew when her feelings were being brushed aside by his tricks, no matter how oblivious he looked.

"Why must your sister's happiness come before mine?" she asked, speaking more bluntly than she normally preferred due to his lack of understanding.

He didn't let go of her, but he didn't throw himself at her feet apologizing either, which only increased her irritation and stiffness. "You confessed earlier that you were planning on starting something with her back when we were first snacking. Isn't that right?"

Her jaw dropped open; that he would actually think it was even remotely appropriate for her to have apologized to his oaf of a sister was a slap in the face. "Why are you all ganging up on me?! You forced me to apologize, why are you bringing up the past?" she hissed at him, trying her best not to alert anybody else in the house to their dispute.

"You're obviously referring to the earlier conflict. But Selia, I don't put your happiness or hers first; I love you both in different ways. So when fights occur - and they always will, that's part of life - I just try to focus on a solution and what's right rather than taking sides."

Not wanting him to continue believing whatever web of fantasies he'd woven, her response came back hard and fast. "Everything you just said is bullshit," she replied, incensed beyond words and unable to just write him a dissertation on why his sister was a pompous ass.

"Are you being serious?"

"Yes, I'm being serious!" she replied, almost pushed to the point where she was willing to go to sleep without reconciliation beforehand. "Your sister humiliated me in front of all of our friends and you didn't even yell at her!"

She folded her arms in front of her again, dramatically turning her head to look away from him. Surely he must have understood that what he'd done was wrong.

"Selia, I thought we resolved this already-"

"You pressured me! You and your she bat of a sister just pushed and you pushed until I gave in because I just wanted to make you happy! I do everything in this relationship and all you do is eat standing up like a horse in the kitchen!"

"Calm down."

"Shari has demon ears and she turns everything into a confrontation! I was trying to advise her and she escalated things!"

As if her words finally made it through his thick skull, he forcibly hugged had and shut up for a moment, allowing her to vent her frustrations. Just for his sake she hugged him back, but only so he wouldn't feel completely devastated as his error was made clear to him. She couldn't remember exactly all the things she'd said even by a minute later, but she'd obviously gotten through to him somehow because he allowed her to finish explaining exactly what was wrong with his family's behavior without interrupting her.

For a few seconds they held each other, her point having been made once he'd allowed her to speak. She pulled her head back to look up at him, seeking further validation. "And another thing, mmph-"

Her righteous fury was silenced when he tiled her chin up with his hand and kissed her, muffling her words and waking her up from any drowsiness she might have felt. She'd been so surprised by the action that she didn't respond for the first few seconds, only wrapping her arms around his neck when he leaned down and swept her off of her feet. Because they both had to work so much (which wasn't out of the ordinary for elves or dwarves), and because he traveled so much between her apartment and his parents' house, they were both tired all the time. More often than not, they slept at odd times and literally slept rather than doing anything else.

This felt...so right, however. Even if he'd cut off her sentence before she could finish, she didn't mind. His family's mores be damned, Corrianna and Issinia were already asleep, Henaia was gone somewhere, her room was empty, they were adults, do things, make choices. Have fun. Be alone. Sensations.

Tiondel tasted like cinnamon. Goblin manufactured breath mints often came with horrible side effects; natural means we're much better. More effective. Tastier. Thrillinger. Hotter.

Against the wall. Then. Cinnamon on her tongue. Nose pressed against his. Heart pounding, chest expanding for air. Want it. Need it. Hand on her ass. Squeezes. Pulls her leg up. Back to the wall, front flush against him. Delirious...intoxication. Hands on her.

"Gaaaahhh!" she gasped desperately, breaking away from the kiss in order to breathe. She wasn't dumb, and knew he'd kissed her to shut her up, but all coherent thought left her when she felt his manhood pressed against her womanhood, their pants the only barrier. His family disapproved of their behavior, but one of his brothers behaved in a worse way, so screw-

"Hooo!" she yelped as he buried his nose and lips in the flesh of her neck. "Oh, you, mph...you fffffffffffffffucker!"

Cupping her butt cheeks, he lifted up and carried her to her empty bedroom, ravaging her the entire way from the moment the door closed until when he let them collapse onto her bed. Thoughts and feelings of how much she detested his family were brushed aside as he worked her over, once again displaying that passion for which she could excuse the many personality flaws that normally bothered her.

Just when clothes began to fly off and the entire room became hot and heavy, he started to slow down, torturing her into a quivering mess.

"Don't stop!" she pleaded, trying in vain to unbuckle his pants with weak, trembling hands.

Taking both of her wrists in one of his hands, pinned her down and hovered over her, his attention suddenly pulled away from her in an infuriating way. "Wait...something's not right," he murmured, the passion gone from his voice.

"You're not fucking me, that's what's wrong!" she growled, wiggling in a futile attempt to work her pants down the remaining length of her legs.

He sat up on his knees, earning an angry squeal through her nose at him. "No, I'm being serious. I heard something." His ears pricked up, and he turned toward the door as if listening for something.

Her heart thumping in her chest, her head reeling from unreleased energy, she draped her arm over her face and sank into the pillow. "I hate you," she hissed, not feeling the least bit contrite for the anger in her tone.

There was no time to vent her anger this time, however. Propping herself up on her elbows, she resolved to tell him later that he was right, her pride be damned. Very faintly over the wind, they could both hear the sound of Henaia screaming.


	13. Jalfaren 2

**A/N: na na naa na...na na naa na...hey hey hey...goodbyyeeeee.**

Jalfaren held the gun in his hands, shaking more from fear than from the cold as he paced around the four trapped burglars. Overall, the temperature didn't feel that cold for him. He'd grown up in the higher peaks of the Stonetalon Mountains rather than the village where he currently resided, and cold weather was the norm for him. The thick coat of mink fur his parents had bought for him as a Tuesday gift kept him rather warm as well, so physically he was taken care of as always.

Psychologically was another issue. There was something about the entire situation that didn't make sense. Pacing in a circle in the woods, he tried to wonder just what might actually be lurking beyond the six feet of visibility he had. It was just their imaginations, it had to be; the story about the mugging had certainly been from _his_ imagination. He literally made it all up on a whim so Sharimara wouldn't realize he'd been peeping on her changing her clothes, thinking himself lucky when he'd concocted a believable story to blame for his broken nose.

But this...what was that crazy old tauren talking about? Jalfaren knew he could trick all the peasants at the lodge, but what Mister Montanha and now these would be burglars had claimed didn't make any sense. What had scared them so much that they'd run all that way?

"Stop pacing kid, you're making me dizzy," said the goblin man who appeared to be the leader of the four.

Surprised by the sudden noise, Jalfaren misstepped and stuck his foot beneath a root that was buried in the snow. He squeaked like a frightened child as he tripped, dropping the rifle to the side and face planting in the snow. The four burglars groaned rather than laughed, all of them rather accepting of their fates as the foul contraption set up by Sharimara's brother held them in place.

"Be careful with that, kid," the goblin woman scolded lightly as Jalfaren struggled to pull his leg out of the snow.

Irate at the insolence, he stumbled out of the white powder on the ground just enough to sneer at her. "I know about guns, don't tell me about guns! My uncle owns a gun store!" he retorted, being creative with the truth and feeling no remorse.

Rolling her eyes, the little green woman just buried her face in the snow, looking surprisingly relaxed considering their situation. "Whatever, kid," she muttered.

"Whatever your face!" he shot back while picking up the rifle again. The human man strained to drag his hand over to his ear in an attempt to block the conversation out, but the ward pulsed again.

The magic was strange, and nothing like the spells that Jalfaren had seen his parents weave; his parents were both cryogenicists, stabbing holes through targets with their deadly frost magic. Voodoo, however, was almost like a curse: despite the fact that all four burglars were firmly held down onto the ground, none of their bodies actually left indents in the snow. It was like some sort of unholy aura binding them but not the environment around them. When it came to Sharimara, that primitive quality was exotic and alluring; when it came to her brothers, it was downright offensive. If there wasn't a law against voodoo, then there should have been.

So preoccupied was Jalfaren in his ruminations on voodoo and Sharimara's feet that he didn't notice anything was awry until the male goblin tried to squirm again.

"Hey, you," the small man grumbled from the snow. "I think I just heard the voice of whatever chased us."

A mild heart attack almost stung Jalfaren, temporarily putting a dent in his collected facade. "Nuh uh," he replied petulantly.

The goblin female jumped in next. "He's not joking, kid. Part of the sound here is the wind, but part of it is the same raspy breathing we heard earlier."

"No it isn't! You can't scare me!"

Even when pinned to the ground, the woman's expression of exasperation was apparent. "Shit, are you being serious? We're a band of bandits who were literally planning on robbing you, we're pinned by some infernal contraption in the woods, we're all being stalked by gods know what, and you think this is some kind of a spooky game?" she asked, immediately sounding as if she were mentally exhausted without any sort of escalation.

Jalfaren began to spin around wildly, pointing the gun in every direction that he turned. "Whoa, easy there!" the human finally said. "You don't want thing to...wait a minute, the safety is still on!"

"There is no safety here!" Jalfaren replied, his voice hushed and unhinged. "You guys...you guys have to help me, you're my prisoners!"

"There isn't much we can do from here," the lead goblin said. "We're pinned down in this thing. But that troll mentioned that the safest spot is probably right here in the range of this thing-"

"Sharimara Hearthglen is not a troll! She's a half troll, thank you very much!" the highborne non mage replied, trying to dig deep for any sort of rage or defiance within his soul.

"I don't give a damn who she is, but you'd better jump in this circle if you want to be safe."

"You're just trying to trick me! You're liars, all of you! None of this is real, I made up the story about being jumped and robbed! You were spying on us when I spoke to Issa and now you're trying to trick me into taking your place in the trap!"

All four burglars groaned, and the goblin woman in particular looked irritated. "Oh for the love of...what would be the point of trapping you in the trap if we still couldn't rob you? Are you stupid?"

"Shut up, just shut up! Let me think!"

For a few seconds, nobody said anything, and Jalfaren became even more jumpy once he heard the sound of heavy, ragged breathing. "If you're going to do something, then do it now," the lead goblin warned. "They're right freaking on top of us and I'm not in the mood for testing out the troll's theory on this ward supposedly being a safe space-"

"She's not a troll, now everybody just shut-"

He didn't need to finish his sentence. Everyone fell silent when the first hiss was heard; Jalfaren even stopped shaking for a moment, but when he saw the first white outline he turned tail and ran.

"You guys are liars and thieves! You deserve to die, not me!"

The human shouted something as he ran, but Jalfaren couldn't hear them anymore; visibility was so low that he couldn't see what happened to the burglars once he moved more than a few yards away, and the wind whipped in the trees so much that he couldn't hear the raspy breathing after a few seconds. Absolute terror coursed through his veins as his legs pumped, propelling him in circles as he realized that he'd forgotten the way back to the lodge.

Deep beneath the snow, his foot hit another rock. "Oh shit!" he yelped as he fell face first into the snow. At the very last second, he grabbed for the rifle, desperately trying to keep ahold of his only weapon.

Unfortunately, his right hand slipped over the safety just at the same time that the impact of his fall triggered the firearm. The fact that he'd gripped the front of the barrel with his left hand in an attempt to retain his grip was only his dumb luck.

" **Oooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwww!** " Jalfaren screamed as the round in the chamber unloaded, tearing through his fingers in a physical pain unlike anything he'd ever known in his life. It felt even worse than the time he'd accidentally cut his hand with a kitchen knife while fixing himself a roast beef sandwich on marijuana bread.

Cold from the snow and hot from the residual gunpowder both singed his nerve endings, magnifying the pain even beyond the initial blast. He pulled his stump out of the snow, but held it too close to his face. The disgusting tangle of meat and bones hanging from the sockets of his knuckles sprayed blood like a fountain, scoring a direct hit in one of his eyes.

"Ow ow ow owowowowowow!" he cried out while wiping his eye with his free hand, his one open eye shedding tears due to the stinging pain in his now blinded eye, giving him half a field of watery vision in the snow.

Raspy breathing behind him caused him to scream like a slaughtered lamb, and he sprang up so quickly that his calves cramped up. Stumbling and falling forward more than walking, he tried to escape the noise, having given up on actually finding the lodge. Every heartbeat sent a wave of pain up through his hand and into the blown off strips of flesh where his fingers had once been, staining the snow red and leaving a convenient trail behind him. Screeches echoed off trees that he couldn't see, at least not until he jumped headfirst into one.

"Ah ah haha ahh, noooo!" he cried in pain as his temples throbbed and the vertebrae in his neck were jarred. Bracing himself against the tree, he dug deep and tried to find the courage inside to stand up for himself and fight.

And the moment he turned around, a white figure in the snow grabbed him by the wrist and bit off all the fingers on his other hand.

"Noooooooooo! Nooo, nooo, nooooooo!" he screamed in pain as both of his stumps now matched, spraying equal amounts of blood. He stumbled back when the white figure let go of him, stinging his elbows on the hard ground as he got up and ran.

The sound of the being eating his figures sounded crunchy, like lettuce. He felt a pang of nausea and swallowed back bile, choking on it a bit as the large outline of the lodge just barely came into his view. He dove and wrapped his bloody stumps on the front door, but felt his heart sink when he found that the door had been locked from the inside. Squealing like a quilboar in agony without actually pronouncing any cogent words, he waved both of his fingerless hands around as he limped toward the door only to feel multiple hands grab him by the jacket.

Screeching even louder than the white figure, Jalfaren kicked and thrashed, unable to clearly see what exactly was dragging him away from the locked front door. A weight pressed down onto his shins, and a searing pain shot through the arches of his feet and the meat of his cramped calves that was even worse than the quick loss of his fingers.

" **It's eating my leeeeeggggsss!** " he screamed, swatting helplessly in the air with his fingerless stumps as the crunching sound started again. The pain was excruciating, and against all logic it only increased as he lost the sensation of feeling in his legs below the knees.

His pathetic screams were finally silenced when he came face to face with the hideous figure for the first time. Teeth gashed as his head was pushed back, and his throat felt that same pain in addition to a sudden asphyxiation. Not drinking his blood, but rather eating his throat to shut him up, the white figure munched until his head almost rolled off the remains of his neck, splattering more blood on the front door that had been locked from the inside.

Satisfied temporarily, the being dragged the decapitated body away, leaving the severed head of the highborne who didn't actually know magic gaping in fear like a macabre gift that the sabre had dragged in.

 **A/N: not sorry. Totally not sorry.**


	14. Issinia 1

A/N: this is when the warriors of the night begin to assemble. Cue in our resident priestess of the moon, Issinia.

Issinia stood at the altar of the main temple in Darnassus, demurely casting her gaze down as the High Priestess of the Sisterhood of Elune, the leader of the Sentinels herself, finished the incantations for the ritual of soul binding. All of the night elf notables had gathered there, alongside her entire extended family and all of her friends. Absolute silence wafted over the gathered crowd as Narrus clasped her hands in his.

The High Priestess turned to Narrus. "Do you take this woman as your lawfully wedded wife, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse?" she asked him.

Bright, silver eyes shone down at Issinia, casting light on that perfect face and illuminating the turquoise light beard as Narrus peered right into her soul. "I do," he said without hesitation.

Then the High Priestess turned to Issinia. "And do you take this man as your lawfully wedded husband, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse?" she asked Issinia.

She grinned wide, finally feeling the moment of her deflowering drawing near. "I do," Issinia whispered in response.

The High Priestess nodded in approval. "And do you confirm that your older brother shall marry a good girl from your mother's ancestral village, get a haircut and start wearing sweater vests?" she High Priestess asked without a hint of humor or jest.

"I do."

"And do you confirm that your younger brother's girlfriend shall forever be condemned as a harlot for questioning the institution of marriage, cast down in the Tree of Woe with the harpy spawn where she belongs?"

"I do."

"And do you confirm that anybody wearing purple leaves in their hair after Lunar Festival instead of green ones shall be condemned to fashion jail?"

"I do."

"And do you consent to take my place as High Priestess of all the Sentinels and mistress of all of Azeroth and Outland?"

"I do."

A standing ovation followed, with the crowd throwing garlands of peaceblooms and chocolate covered strawberries as she and Narrus kissed. Navarion was in the front row, weeping for joy as he smoothed back his proper shoulder length elven hair that had formerly been a mohawk.

"Thank you, Issa!" he cried as a shy archer from an isolated grove clung to his arm and leaned her head on his sweater vest. "I never thought I could become a gentleman before you repaired my brain!"

"Thank you, Issa!" Selia cried as she was led away in chains and a chastity belt by two huntresses. "I wish to be cured of my wickedness!"

"I'm more proud of you than all of your siblings, Issa!" her mother Cecilia cried while clinging to her father, who was also wearing a sweater vest.

Elune herself crashed the wedding party, riding down from the stars on the back of Malorne as everybody prostrated. "I bless everybody with scented candles!" the goddess announced as she caused glasses of non alcoholic egg nog to materialize on a table made of sterling silver.

Issinia and Narrus danced on floating discs of pure starlight, the heavens themselves fading away as nothing existed but the two of them. He held her close, and her mouth parted just as she was about to drink his lips-"

"Issa, stop snoring and wake up," Selia said while shaking her a little bit too roughly.

"Huh! No! No, where are my scented candles...huh...Selia?" Issinia mumbled as she rolled over.

Snapping her bleary eyes open, Issinia found the blurry image of her younger brother's girlfriend hanging over her bed. Murder sat in her mind briefly before a silent hymn calmed her down, and the urgent look on the woman's face grounded Issinia in reality.

"Selia, what's wrong?" she asked while rubbing her eyes.

Seriousness imprinted itself on Selia's face without mockery or contempt, and immediately she knew that something was very, very wrong. "Shari, Jalf, Henaia, Thelios, Kirana and Navarion are all gone, and me and Del just heard Henaia scream in the wind out back."

"By the night," Issinia gasped, forcing herself to wake back up despite her salty eyes and tired muscles. "Do we know where any of them went?"

Selia moved aside so they could both stand up, and when Issinia noticed that Selia had put on a leather jerkin beneath her winter coat, the seriousness became even more apparent. "Shari and Jalf went to check on Navarion's wards. Navarion and Kirana were downstairs but now we can't see them. Henaia and Thelios were gone since the end of dinner."

Every priestess was a sentinel, first and foremost; springing to her feat, Issinia tossed her pajamas aside and began donning her moon blessed silver armor in under a minute, not even bothering to look at Selia as they spoke. "How long ago did you two hear Henaia scream?" she asked while closing latches and clasps.

In another bizarre show of cooperation, Selia actually handed her a thicker cloak to wear over her armor in the cold. "Literally two minutes ago. I got dressed and came directly here. Del is waking up Narrus right now. We decided to leave Corra and Uniol sleeping so not everybody is outside at once."

Issinia leaned down to pull out the long, silver lance that once belonged to her grandmother; even if they were all on vacation, Azeroth was still a dangerous place filled with the craft of war. "That sounds...okay, but they should at least be warned about what's happening," she replied cautiously.

Selia held the door open for Issinia, her yew bow poking out from beneath her cloak. "Del will handle that; we know the drill," the suddenly less infuriating future sister in law said while followng Issinia out.

The two of them found both of the men reaching them on the second floor after only a few minutes. Tiondel brandished the rapier and rifle she'd grown used to seeing him with, while Narrus - one of the few older night elf men who hadn't been a druid - wore his heavy armor beneath his cloak. It was the first time Issinia had ever seen him dressed for combat, and as much as the thought of him being hurt scared her, the way he looked when he was so serious excited her as well.

"Del told my everything, and Corra and Uniol are in the process of waking up," Narrus said, calm and patient as he always was.

Satisfied by the confirmation, Issinia was already turning to hurry down the ramp. "Did they barricade their door?" she asked as the others followed.

Tiondel gave a cynical shake of his head. "They're preparing their gear, though neither of them have ever fought before," he said, already drawing his rapier. "What's the plan, then, once we go out here?"

Though Issinia was about to answer herself, she looked toward Narrus, who had been born during immortality and thus had seen his share of combat. He noticed, and without returning her look spoke while they bounded across the ground floor toward the back foyer of the lodge, just behind the atrium and on the other side of a hallway from the kitchen. "Mister Montanha warned us that he'd seen trespassers; even if they yield, I don't think there's any reason to be gentle."

They found themselves before the back door, and although the wind didn't feel rough or batter the lodge, it whistled loudly from outside. "Then we can feel the situation out; if they fight, we fight," Issinia said as she reached to pen the back door. "Selia, stay in the middle, in front of Narrus. He and I can hold any potential enemies at bay; you and Del can pick them off."

Without an ounce of defiance, Selia just nodded. "Understood," she replied, and almost appeared subdued for once.

Squeezing the handle, Issinia pulled and opened the door. Snow fell on her coat, but not at a particularly high speed; visibility was low, but the velocity of the wind didn't pose any danger. Holding her lance out in front of her, she waited for the other three to exit and close the door behind them. Once the others were ready, she whispered a prayer asking for starlight, channeling the power of the White Lady as she asked for their path to be illuminated.

Rather than a beam, a simple otherworldly light dwindled from the treetops in the form of orbs. Wisps bounded about, swirling around the group like planets orbiting a sun as they formed a sort of enlightened shield. The snow became more visible, and the ultravision provided by everybody's nocturnal eyes helped to paint them a perfectly clear, accurate picture despite the dead of night all around them.

Issinia didn't need to scan the area for long before noticing that a struggle had occurred. "White Lady forgive us all, there's blood in one of the moonwells!" she gasped, raising her voice so that the others could hear her.

"Any fel taint?" Tiondel asked. Being closer to their father's ways, he was more in tune with the spirits than the balance, and couldn't always recognize demonic corruption.

"No, none. It's strange...there seems to be no corruption at all. There's mana residue...wait...drainage. Somebody drained mana from another person, I can sense it."

Selia's ears pricked up beneath her hooded cloak. "Me too...there's only a little, almost like some was spilled...a warlock, maybe?" she asked.

Issinia shook her head as they all approached in formation. "No, not possible; the fel taint would linger for a very long time. But I don't sense any, nor do I see Henaia or Thelios...there's blood, but no bodies. Perhaps they were attacked, and then captured..."

Tiondel snorted his disagreement. "And taken where? In a storm like this, they wouldn't get far, nor-"

"Wait," Narrus ordered, causing everyone to fall silent.

All four of them crouched, listening to the whistle of the wind. Raspy, almost whiny breathing reached Issinia's ears across the air, and the wisps that were floating around them became visibly agitated, swirling around them at higher speeds as more wisps descended from the trees and hovered over a single bush. Issinia didn't need to take a second glance before she saw white feet and ankles in between the leaves near the bottom of the bush.

"There!" she hissed while pointing, though before she'd even extended her finger an arrow flew right into the target. Selia notched a second when the white figure screamed, and all four of them tensed up when the scream was echoed from all around them.

Like a pack of wolves, the vaguely bipedal forms leapt toward them, digging their fingers into the snow for greater traction like apes. Even the one that Selia had shot tried to charge, falling into a writhing heap but somehow forcing itself back up into a steady limp. Awkward cries like monkeys being strangled came at them from every direction, and Tiondel deftly switched from his rapier to his rifle, fired off a shot into the abdomen of one of the white figures, and then switched back to his rapier in time to skewer its entire head when it didn't stop charging.

To say that Issinia was entirely calm would have been an exaggeration, but the advantage was clearly theirs. She poked the figures near their hips and knees with her lance to cripple them, and Narrus sliced at their thighs with his naginata as their thighs to topple them over. Arrows flew like the raging snow as Selia emptied a quarter of her quiver, and Tiondel swiftly finished off the creatures that were injured by Issinia and Narrus. One, two, four, eight of the creatures had fallen dead before the screeches drifted further away, and the wisps followed after the white figures for a distance before returning to Issinia. Black blood stained the snow as the corpses laid bleeding, and everyone held their ground for a few seconds before relaxing.

"The wisps have returned...the rest of the creatures fled," Issinia shouted over the wind.

"How many survived?" Selia asked.

Reaching for the balance again, Issinia received the answers of the wisps in the form of ideas and concepts rather than words. "Only three, but there might be more. They're too far for me to detect them now; they're fast, whatever they are."

Tiondel reached down and cut the arms off of one before stabbing it in the throat and lifting it with his rapier to get a better look at it. Despite the gruesome nature of the act, she knew it was a wise precaution lest the creature not be entirely dead.

His eyes widened. "I think this is...this is-"

The wind had died down just enough for them all to hear him clearly. Unfortunately, his revelation about the white figure was cut off by another such screech - this time from inside the house.

Only half a second's hesitation lingered in the air before Issinia panicked. "Corra!" she cried, casting a single blessing on the blood tainted moonwell before dashing back toward the read door of the lodge.


	15. Kirana 2

A/N: switching back to Kirana here...I hope that I can stay true to the whole different perspectives thing.

Kirana stepped a bit closer toward Navarion now that she had him cornered. To think that he actually believed she'd been afraid of a scary noise in the basement was rather silly - almost patronizing even. Of course, she could put up with his response to her frightened little girl act if it meant she could get her foot in the proverbial door with the Hearthglen family. Stealing trinkets from their house when they didn't even know her name was one thing; landing herself one of the sons was another. After all, it wasn't fair that Selia got everything and Kirana got nothing.

She continued to back him in to the wall, both satisfied that her behavior was putting him on wide but also irritated that he would just give in and take her. Her patience was wearing thin, and she was particularly disappointed that her prying into his little heartache over some dead ex he should have gotten over fifteen years ago hadn't been enough to make him hers.

She leaned forward and hugged around his waist, feeling very little true attraction but certainly delighted that he didn't try to pull away. "I always feel safe with you, Navarion," she said in her best little girl voice.

"I...uh...you're welcome," he replied while fidgeting. He still had the pistol in his hands, and it was one of his few personal effects aside from his family's wealth that she actually was interested in.

There would be time for that later, however. For the time being, she sufficed herself by daintily wrapping her fingers around the barrel and prying it from his hands. Placing it on the shelf behind him gave her even more excuse to press into him, which she felt she needed due to his lukewarm response. He still had yet to hug her back even when she wrapped both arms around his waist, and she tried to bite back against her irritation again.

Like a game of chess, she tried to push without crossing the line. When she tried to rest her chin on his chest to look up at him, he finally did pull away, and she realized that she'd made a strategic error. Releasing him somewhat, she tried to work her puppy dog eyes.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, trying her best to guilt trip him for putting space in the middle.

He opened his mouth to speak, but it took a few tries before any sound came out. "I...no, it's okay now. I just had to be sure that the noise was...well, anyway." He tried to nudge her shoulder around so they could leave. "Our iced tea might be warming up, so we ought to go back up-"

"Or we could stay," she interrupted, refusing to budge and standing in his way. "You know...down here. Alone." If this didn't work, she wasn't sure what else to do; she'd never failed at tempting someone before, just as she'd never encountered someone she pursued so hard who also irritated her so much. The paradox was confounding.

The discomfort was apparent on his face, and the urge to both slap him and kiss him struck her again. "See, the thing is...I'm sort of on the rebound right now...I'd kind of like it if-"

On the rebound from some three month fling that ended fifteen years ago? What kind of sissy is this? she thought to herself, on the verge of throwing her hands in the air. No longer tolerant enough to listen to him, she just cut him off and pulled an ace from her sleeve.

"You don't like me?" she asked, trying her best to sound hurt.

His eyes widened, and she felt her irritation subside when she felt she had him. "Oh, no! No, Kirana, no, that's not at all what I meant!"

"I feel it's like what you meant..."

He put his arm around her, holding her close as she felt him working hard to cheer her up. As long as she could keep him working, things were fine. "Hey, come on, it's not like that. I swear, it's not you. It's me."

"That's what people say when they mean 'it's totally you,' but they don't want to just come out and say it."

"I mean it, Kirana. Look, I'm not in a right mindset...let's just go upstairs and restart the conversation from before we heard the noise down here, alright?"

Don't think so, you stubborn jackass, she thought. Staring at her feet, she just shook her head and slipped her hand down his lower back, pulling herself into him again. She rested her head against his chest, pretending to pout while strategically breathing onto his collar bone. He was too tall, far beyond what she liked, and although she could live with it she still had to tilt her head upward in order to tickle the base of his neck with her nose.

Even if he had a ridiculous little attachment to dead girlfriends from way too long ago, he was still a man. Not as aggressive a man as she'd thought he was the first time she saw him, but still a man. She felt him breathe a little bit heavier when she angled her head up, obviously trying to snuggle up alone in the basement and more or less throwing herself at him. He hesitated, still too melancholy for her liking, but she could feel him begin to come around as she snaked her other hand up to his bicep-

"Rrrrrreeeeeeeeeeee!"

"What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck-"

"Get down!" he shouted while shoving her roughly to the floor, meeting whatever had screeched at them with a hard blow that knocked it against the wall.

Crawling against the shelves beneath the wooden panel, she frantically searched for a piece of broken glass, an exceptionally long sewing needle or any object she could defend herself with as she listened to the scuffle. A second screech rang out, and she looked up in time to see a white figure leaping toward his back.

"Navarion!" she cried, more out of anger than concern as her protector nearly failed in his duty.

At the last second, he reared back and grabbed the roughly bipedal creature by the throat. He was large enough such that he could hold it out of range from his face, though the white thing did scratch up his shirt sleeves. Cracks in the stone wall marked where he'd knocked the first creature, but it fought to its feat and leapt at him all the same. It leapt with its mouth wide open, inadvertently meeting his elbow in the process. A sickening snap echoed and the creature screeched in agony, it's jaw locked open at an awkward angle.

The other one in his hands kicked and thrashed, and at random one of its feet connected with his groin. "Shit!" he gasped, tossing the second creature to the side and grabbing his balls as he nearly fell to his knees.

In her panic, Kirana found a scalpel used for shaping leather strips and items, pulling it off of the shelf and creeping the best she could. Though she was no sentinel, she'd been in plenty of fights over scraps of food and stray copper coins, and despite her terror she experienced little trouble sneaking up behind the second creature and gouging one of its solid black eyes out.

Another screech literally hurt her ears, and she narrowly ducked a wild swing of the white figure's claw. It's one eye grew wide as it screamed at her, giving her a good look at it for the first time. Elven in form, it was albino, naked and emaciated, the normal glow gone from its solid black, shark like eyes. It's rotten lips revealed infected gums as it screamed at her, far more frightening in its appearance than any sort of ghoul or ghost. Just when she thought she'd be done for, the creature flinched, noticing a foot flying for its kneecap when it was already too late. Navarion kicked the creatures knee joint, snapping the leg at an unnatural angle and leaving the monster screaming on the ground. Grabbing it by the throat, he lifted it up with one mighty yank, slamming its head against the stone ceiling and cracking its skull open.

So excited was Kirana to simply be alive that she didn't notice the first creature leap for her. Before she had a chance to react, it sank its teeth into her forearm.

"Help! Heeeeellllpp!" she screamed as pain shot through her arm. Navarion jumped on the creature's back, pinning it to the ground but failing to pry it loose, and even when Kirana dug her own claw like fingernails into the monster's wind pipe, it refused to let go.

In a savage display that caused her to be as disgusted by him as by the creatures, Navarion gored the back of its neck with his tusks, destroying its spinal cord and causing it to go limp. Black blood stained his tusks, and he actually started wiping them off with his shirt instead of tending to her wound.

"Fucking help me you idiot! I'm hurt!" she shouted at him, no longer able to conceal her anger. For a few seconds, he shot her an expression of shock,many she quickly remembered to put on her pleasant face again. "I'm sorry, I'm just in a lot of pain! Help me, please!"

Suspicion washed across his face but then dissipated, much to her relief. He held out his hands, and his palm started to glow red like the foul voodoo magic she'd seen from Darkspear trolls in Stonetalon. "Hold still...I'm an emergency healer," he said in a cold, objective tone as the primitive magic poured from his palms into her arm.

Kirana felt her arm turn cold and then numb, and finally warm as sensation returned without any pain. The tingling sensation lingered, making her skin crawl as she wondered what sort of Neanderthal magic he'd sown beneath her skin. Teeth marks in what appeared to be an incredible old, faced scar remained on her arm, causing her to gasp when her skin wasn't simply returned intact to what it once was.

"I have a scar," she whined while sitting on the floor, forgetting about the fact that she'd almost just been killed.

This time, he didn't seem hesitant as he held her close. "I'm sorry...truly, I am-"

"By the loa, we were worried about you guys!" Tiondel said from the doorway of the basement.

Navarion turned around, still kneeling in front of Kirana but pulling his attention away from her. "Great timing, Del," he chuckled, though his voice sounded downcast. "We just got attacked by these things."

Both brothers ignored Kirana, and she found herself rather crestfallen as her plans had been ruined by circumstance. Tiondel hung on the door frame, a bloody sword in one hand. "So were we. You'd better come upstairs...Issa thinks there are more of them out there, and Shari caught some bandits that said the same."

At least lifting Kirana up and making her feel a little bit pampered, Navarion nonetheless seemed to ignore her as he led her after Tiondel. "How the hell long were you guys chatting upstairs while we were almost getting killed?"

Tiondel didn't even bother to look back at him as the trio passed through the kitchen. "We talk fast, and you look alive. Get serious, because these creatures certainly are."

Out in the atrium, most of the group was gathered. Everybody was standing about in various levels of armor, save Navarion who was still in his pajamas and Sharimara who was simply wearing the leathers that went beneath armor. Kirana suddenly felt a little out of place, especially next to Narrus, who looked like a glaive thrower with eyes. The entire group was in a circle, chatting away about what had happened.

"There were three of them that escaped," Issinia told the entire group as Kirana arrived next to Navarion. "We killed eight but we think that the blood we saw belonged to Henaia or Thelios, or both."

"But what do these things want? They look like warped elves...are they undead?" Selia asked.

All of a sudden, the front door swung open. In a matter of microseconds, half the room was ready to shoot or stab the lone figure standing there, silent and ready as the glowing eyes of a balance druid illuminated the area in front of the door.

The rather grizzled looking night elf man spoke in a raspy, weathered voice. "Not undead...something else," he said while raising his hands to show that he had no weapons.

Uniol reacted poorly, obviously taking exception to his house being intruded upon by monsters and strangers. "State your business, sir, and not a syllable more beyond that," the usually subdued druid in training said harshly to his elder.

Holding completely still, the thin, hungry looking older druid didn't appear the least bit daunted by the sharp points aimed at him. "My name is Nard, and I've lived in these mountains since time immemorial...I watch over these lands, even if nobody takes notice. And I'm here now because it seems that the curse from the lower valley has drifted up to these sacred halls." Though his words were respectful, nobody in the group loosened up.

"Why should we believe you?" Corrianna asked, much more blunt than Kirana had previously thought her to be.

"The way I see it, you don't really have a choice. The storm is too heavy for you to go down the mountain and ask the sentinels for help, plus none of you seem to entirely understand what you're up against - especially if you think these things are undead."

Tiondel's eyes narrowed. "You were spying on us."

"When it involves ridding the world of these monsters, the ends justify the means. I've been tracking these things for years...it seems that you all showed up at the right place at the right time to help end this mess."

"End this mess? Look, buddy, I don't know what sort of vendetta you have, but two of our friends died because of these things," Uniol said harshly again. "We don't much appreciate being pawns in any sort of wider plan of yours."

Nard paused again, refusing to respond at first. Tension mounted and Kirana worried what he'd say next.

"Three of your friends died. That highborne fellow got it."

Murmurs broke out among the group, though Kirana noticed that Sharimara suddenly started giving Nard a softer, almost approving expression. Stepping forward, Issinia took the lead.

"So what's your plan, then? What would you have us do that we can't simply do ourselves, holed up in here until the morning?"

Nard shook his head. "There are more than three of those things left; they have a veritable colony, and I counted all of them converging on this spot now that the scent of blood is in the wind. At this rate, you won't make it to the morning unless you strike back." When he didn't elaborate, everybody in the group - including Kirana herself - grew frustrated rather than curious.

"What do you want from us!" Issinia exclaimed, but was met by a single finger held up to Nard's mouth.

He held up his other finger to Tiondel. Then he moved his initial finger to Corrianna. Then he moved his initial finger again to Selia. Then he moved his second finger to Navarion.

"We need...the anti curse." Groans among all those gathered weren't even concealed, but Nard appeared undeterred. "One full phial from the moonwell on the lower southern ridge, and one frostbloom from the patch growing on the lower east ridge. They need to be mixed, at which point we can create a concoction so potent that a single drop will burn all the way through them."

Impatient and impolite (though Kirana couldn't blame him), Tiondel held out his hand as if asking for more information. "Alright, I'm an alchemist by trade; tell me how we're going to find these reagants on opposite sides of the mountain?"

Nard narrowed his eyes this time, leaning down as his peg leg scraped against the floor. "We're going to split up," he murmured ominously.

The reaction of the entire group was stiff and immediate.

"No!"

"Bullshit!"

"I'm done, get this guy out of here."

"This is crazy."

"Gosh darn it!"

"Corra, learn to cuss properly."

"Dag nabit?"

"I think we should trust him," Sharimara said, earning shocked expressions from everybody.

Kirana finally spoke up. "Shari, you can't be serious!"

Everybody looked to the green eyed woman, who was standing apart from the group. "Narrus, you were a barrow den guard for a thousand years. Uniol, you can heal. Can the two of you defend this house on your own?" she asked rather bluntly.

Everybody fell a bit quiet, taking the suggestion more seriously when it came from one of their own. "In theory, there's no doubt that we could," Narrus replied cautiously.

"And Navarion has two wards left; he can set one up at the basement, one at the back door, and the two of you can defend the front door and the atrium. For the rest of us, we have a large enough group that even when split in two, we can adequately defend ourselves. If we can defend this house, and we can also venture outside to strike back at these things, and we've all had a good track record so far, then why wouldn't we at least try to take the fight to them?"

Discomfort wafted off of everybody, and Kirana begin to feel rather nervous. She had messed people up in bar fights before, but this was something entirely different. This was actual curse ending, creature killing guerrilla warfare. Aside from slashing people with broken bottles, she didn't know what she could bring to the table.

Everyone looked toward Issinia, grating on Kirana's nerves as Navarion's uptight younger sister somehow became the unofficial leader of the group. "And you really think this plan will work?" she asked uneasily.

"This crazy old mountain man - no offense, mister Nard..."

"None taken."

"...obviously has more experience with these things than we do. And I don't know about you all...but they killed some of our own. We might not have known Henaia and Thelios that well, but they were still people." She paused for a moment as everybody looked at her expectantly. "Not Jalf, though. Nobody cares about him."

"Shari!" Issinia huffed in moral outrage.

"You make sense," Nard told Sharimara.

"Come on, then; what do you say?" Sharimara asked the group, though she was looking at Issinia, as were the others.

After a few seconds of silence, Issinia sighed in defeat. "So we have two reagants. How do we divvy this up?"

"It's simple: we match classes. You and Navarion can both heal, so you'll both be separate. Me and Del can both cut people up, so we'll be in separate groups. Selia and Corra can both provide ranged support, so they'll be in separate groups. That leaves Nard and Kirana."

Kirana's eyed widened at the prospect of being on the front lines. "Now wait a minute, if the crazy mountain guy knows about these reagants, then how can we have two separate groups?" she asked, looking for an excuse not to go.

Issinia was pinching the bridge of her long, Darkspear nose, but was still cooperative. "One of the reagants is a moonwell; I can locate it on my own if I have a good team guarding me. That would leave Nard in the other group to locate this herb, and you in the same group as me, Kirana."

Doing the math in her head quickly, she realized that she'd be in a group with Issinia - and thus not Navarion. "No, wait, you can find the moonwell, but I'm really good at locating herbs-"

"That's a great idea, Issa," Sharimara said, grinning evilly as the two horrible sisters obviously colluded against her. Rage boiled up in Kirana's veins as she realized they'd spring a trap on her. "So you, Kirana, and how about me in one group, and then Navarion, Nard and Del in another group."

Kirana tried waving her hands to get everyone's attention. "Now wait just a minute-"

Then Corrianna jumped in. "And Selia, you and Del are together...typically on combat missions people in relationships aren't paired together for the sake of focus and objectivity. So why don't you go with Issa and Shari, and I'll go with the boys?"

Tiondel appeared taken aback. "We're men, thank you very much," he protested.

"No, no, this is all wrong!" Kirana retorted, her frustration increasing as the only reaction she received was a cursory glance from Uniol.

Selia nodded at Corrianna. "I understand...it's for the greater good," she sighed, showing genuine affection for Tiondel for the first time that weekend when she gripped his wrist briefly.

Narrus rested his chin on his knuckles briefly. "So that's Issa, Shari, Selia and Kirana on one team, and then Corra, Del, Navarion and Nard on the other?" he asked the entire group.

"No-"

"Yes, that's exactly the plan, dear," Issinia said while literally turning so widely that she blocked Kirana from view of the others. "Let's not waste time...Navarion, come here so I can bless the entrances and you can set up your remaining wards," she said, grabbing him by the arm and giving him no chance to speak as she dragged him away.

"They're up in my room at the top floor, so we need to go upstairs first," he replied, though she'd already dragged him halfway up the first ramp.

Kirana tried to follow them for a split second. "Wait-"

Sharimara stepped in front of her roughly, nearly knocking her over. "My armor is upstairs too, I'll go with you guys," she said in an unnecessarily loud voice that Kirana just knew was a challenge.

Like a rugby team, everybody was running this way and that as they started falling into formation. Even Nard moved when Narrus demanded to have a few choice words with him. Left on her own, Kirana felt as if her safety and her life were once again torn from her own hands.

She wandered over toward one of the support tree trunks inside of the lodge, leaning against it as she felt like she were channeling Jalfaren. Everybody knew what they had to do, and all of them seemed to forget about her. Even Navarion didn't protest when his sisters and cousin had bullied her away from him, angering her at them all as she wondering what the hell she'd even have to show at the end of this awful, violent vacation aside from some trinkets and pieces of jewelry that, once sold on the black market, would support her for only a few weeks at most.

But as she stood there, watching everybody run by...it came to her. Her ears pricked up, uplifted by the fact that nobody was watching her. She knew what she'd do in order to get something out of the weekend...and as she slipped by unnoticed, she ran for a quick trip back down to the basement.


	16. Corrianna 3

A/N: we're switching back to Corrianna's perspective here, and not just because. There's a certain reason...

Corrianna walked next to Nard, trying her best to pry as much information as she could out of the grizzled mountain man as she could while the four of them hiked down the eastern side of the mountain. Tiondel blocked much of her view of the front and Navarion brought up the rear, and thus providing her with a semblance of safety as they marched. It helped her to relax, and also to focus on one of the more frustrating conversations she'd engaged in for a while.

"Mister Nard...what I'm trying to ask is: what exactly is a frostbloom? I've just never heard of it before," Corrianna said, doing her best to rephrase a question he'd heretofore dodged. "Or to better word it: I haven't heard of one yet."

Staring down the rough path through the trees they were hiking on, Nard looked as if he weren't even paying attention to her. "I told you back at the lodge, you've heard of it," he replied tersely.

"What the...I mean, before you told me at the lodge, I'd never heard about frostblooms before."

"You're welcome."

Tiondel muttered something in Zandali out in front, and while Corrianna didn't speak the language (she was half night elf and half human herself), she distinctly heard a very dirty word mixed in the sentence. The old one legged druid just let the clear resentment roll off of him, and even reached forward to direct Tiondel's path.

"Turn left after that boulder," he said while pointing into the impenetrable mass of snowfall.

"I can't see beyond the length of my own sword out here, what the hell are you pointing at?" Tiondel replied irately.

"That boulder."

Growling under his breath, Tiondel continued to lead the way through the whiteness despite the low visibility. Once the almost spat had died down, Corrianna tried again.

"So mister Nard, what I meant to say was: I still don't know what a frostbloom is."

"I told you back at the lodge."

"No, you...mister Nard!"

He ignored her protest, and continued to walk forward until Tiondel literally stopped. Corrianna could already feel the tension mounting. She knew Tiondel and Navarion very, very well; in fact, she was even closer to her two cousins than she was to her own brother. In a way, she knew all six of her cousins better than they knew each other, since she'd always been considered 'off limits' during their squabbles, allowing her to learn and understand their personalities more objectively. She also knew that out of all of them, Tiondel was the most volatile: the most calm when he felt calm, but the most shockingly violent with no escalation when he felt it justified. And judging by the way he stared down Nard, she worried that he might be feeling out a justification.

"My cousin asked you a question. Answer it." he ordered, shooting the older man an eerily blank expression.

Navarion didn't intervene, even when Corrianna stepped a bit closer to him, and she began to regret having pushed so much if it meant that their guide would be throttled.

Nard looked so nonchalant that there wasn't even defiance in his eyes. "I already told you all, we're looking for a frostbloom-"

"Define that word!" Tiondel growled while grabbing the man by the collar of his jacket.

At first, Corrianna considered intervening, but then decided against it; contradicting her cousins in front of Nard might break down group cohesion and give the old man a chance to waste time and play games. Instead, she sufficed herself by shaking her head at Tiondel from behind their guide, but to no avail.

"A frostbloom is the other hand of the anti curse," Nard replied, undaunted and completely unworried.

"What the hell is it!" Tiondel shouted, shaking the smaller man but eliciting no reaction. "Is it a flower, a root, a weed! Tell us what we're looking for or you're losing your other leg!"

"Del!"

Hands aplomb, Nard simply allowed himself to be suspended in the air for a moment, infuriating in his obstinacy. "If you'd only feast your eyes upon the soil around you, then you'd come to realize that we have already happened upon that which we seek," he replied.

Dropping the man roughly in the snow, Tiondel grew visibly angry enough that Navarion tried to hold him back. "You're full of shit. Completely full of shit, I should have known."

Not wanting to lose their chance at an easier way to burn all the creatures to death, Corrianna stepped in between them. "Nard, we really need to find this frostbloom or whatever. Please, just tell us where it is before those things find us again."

Navarion immediately tensed up and flexed his forearm, causing a spring loaded sickle blade to emerge from the cage like contraption on his bracer. "Too late for that!" he yelled over the wind.

All of a sudden, Nard's games seemed less relevant as the three family members tensed up. Tiondel and Navarion both held their blades at the ready, standing on either side of Corrianna as she drew her bow. A gift from her mother, the weapon had no need for a quiver; all arrows were naturally conjured by the nature enchantment, firing projectiles powered by the balance itself.

If they were attacked, this would be the first time she'd ever had to use it outside of a hunt...and she could feel the tension. Every blood vessel in her body pumped, every nerve ending twitched in anxiety, every dendrite fired off synapse responses telling her to run, but she didn't. She was raised like a Kaldorei; she was supposed to be bred to defend nature from such abominations. She ignored the shaking toes in her boots as the first sound of screeching reached her, and tried to aim the best she could. To do so, however, was extremely difficult considering the low visibility.

Navarion sensed their direction first, likely due to that voodoo stuff he dealt in. "Del, in front of you!" he hissed in Common lest the strange corrupted elves understand them too easily.

Before Tiondel could react, Corrianna drew the bowstring and let it fly, sending one of the conjured projectiles glowing into the snow. The light it emitted allowed them to just barely see a single gnarled arm as it was pierced, and the following scream let them know that she'd hit her mark. "Good job, Corra!" Tiondel cheered while aiming his sword around in front of them.

"Thankso my goddess!" she shrieked as she let another arrow fly at a separate white figure that charged at them through the snowstorm. Her arrow pierced what appeared to be the shoulder, burning the skin as it dissipated into wisp like light. This time the monster made it to them, and she felt herself jump when Tiondel had to stab it through the head.

Violent movement from behind her caused her to stumble forward, and she looked over her shoulder to see Navarion decapitate one of the monsters before she'd even realized that they were being assaulted from that direction. Her apprehension began to constrict her chest when she realized that they were surrounded by screeches on all sides, the sounds echoing in the trees and preventing her from discerning the direction. Off to the side, Nard simply cast bizarre nature spells in a circle around himself repeatedly, providing absolutely no help as he ineffectively dared the not entirely unintelligent creatures to just walk right into his offensive blasts.

"Northbound! Northbound! There's a whole wave!" Navarion yelled, continuing to face toward the west and leaving Tiondel and Corrianna to fight what sounded like at least two dozen of the monsters.

Her nimble fingers plucked at the bowstring as her arrows flew, finding an easy path to her numerous targets due to their amassed bulk. Irritated screams rang out as the monsters kept coming, and Tiondel fired a single shot with his rifle before tossing the weapon to the ground so he could move more quickly (Corrianna had seen him use it enough times while hunting to know that it took forever to reload). Navarion grunted against a wave of screeching monsters, and Corrianna found her level of fear increasing as she realized that they were surrounded. Her two cousins hacked and slashed, preventing her from getting clear shots once the monsters were right on top of them. She felt useless.

Seeking a way to help protect them, she ran over to the boulder that Nard had mentioned earlier, finally able to see it through the thick snow once the monsters had pushed them all back. In one single leap, she landed on the top...and with one single slip, she fell over the other side.

"Oh no!" she yelped for help as she found a tingling inside her core that signified a state of free fall.

"Corra!" Navarion screamed from behind her, his voice drowned out by the amassing corrupted elves swarming them.

Too afraid and shocked to even scream, Corrianna sucked in cold air and choked on it, hiccuping as she fell off the side of the mountain. Images of her father teaching her to swim for the first time and her aunt letting her stay awake late during summer visits flashed before her eyes, both warming her heart while also wrenching on it as she struggled to think of whether she'd like to hit the rocks head or feet first.

"Oomph!" grunted a familiar deep voice as all of a sudden Corrianna's equilibrium returned and nearly knocked her out.

Down was down and up was up again, and after a surprisingly short fall, she found that the sky stopped flying further away from her. Bile rose up in her throat and her entire shoulder joint felt like it had been sprained, stinging her every time she breathed, but she was alive. That much, she realized within the first microsecond of landing, even before she'd stopped seeing stars.

"Ow, my...Del! Navarion! I'm sorry, I'm coming back to you!" she shouted up the side of the mountain from...wherever she'd landed.

One second later and she found herself roughly shoved into the snow on a ledge winding around the side of the mountain. The wind howled and she found herself far away from her cousins, unable to hear what was happening far above them. Another angry grunt reached her ears as a wide person stood up and offered her his hand.

"First it starts raining naked blood elves outside my cabin, and then you land on me. What the hell are you people doing up there?"

Winding at the pain in her shoulder and the rudeness in the man's voice, Corrianna recoiled as she realized that it was Mister Montanha, the groundskeeper. "It's you!" she exclaimed, feeling another sharp pain in her shoulder at the strain of shouting on her lungs.

Giving her a resentful expression, he reached out and held his glowing palm up to her shoulder without even asking. Warmth laced itself in and out of every tissue of her skin, working a healing spell that was even more efficient than what she'd seen her mother perform. He pulled his hand back right away and tugged his winter shawl even more tightly around himself, continuing to look rather irritated and not the least bit relieved for having saved her life.

"Yes, it's me, the guy who actually cleans up after all those raunchy sentinel parties. The only one who keeps this place intact. Speaking of which, what the hell are you all doing up there that has naked, frost bitten blonde blood elf bimbos throwing themselves off the mountain?"

Angry at his language at attitude but happy that he'd not only (sort of) caught her in midair but also healed her shoulder amazingly well, she tried to moderate her tone. "We were attacked...three of our friends were killed by these black eyed, albino creatures that look like withered or wretched or something like that, and I...I fell off the side."

The sudden realization of what had happened and where she was suddenly hit her now that she wasn't seeing her life flashing before her eyes. "Mister Montanha...my cousins...oh no, I...they don't have ranged support anymore. They were relying on me, I..." she felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and she cursed her lack of combat experience for having let her cousins down.

Unsympathetic, the bovine man frowned at her. "Crying won't solve anything. Now, tell me...how many of them did you take out? It's only been a few decades since the last attack and they can't reproduce," he said clinically.

Although Corrianna has been trying to listen for signs of Tiondel and Navarion, her eyes focused on the white furred tauren in front of her once she realized what he'd said. "Wait a minute...last attack?" she asked.

"Yes, the last attack; Uniol's family had held this property for a long time but this was before I ever saw much of them. They hit the initial pioneers rebuilding this place a few times but backed off when the sentinels came. If they're attacking in force now, then it's probably because they sensed easier targets. Now, focus kid: how many were there?"

Scowling at his tone of voice again, she tried to follow his instructions and just ignore his rudeness. "My cousins killed eight at first, and we just killed maybe another ten, but it sounded like there were a lot more." She shook her head, pushing the clinical thoughts away as she tried to reason with the man who obviously knew the area a lot better than she and her family did. "Please, we have to go back! I'll tell you whatever you need to know, but I can't leave them up there without my help! There are just two of them and Nard-"

Mister Montanha's eyes widened as big as saucers. "Nard?! Good lord, you guys sought help from Nard?" he blurted out.

Terror gripped Corrianna's mind. "Is that bad?" she asked, her voice shrinking without decreasing in volume.

"Move. Come on, let's go," he said while holding her along with him much in the way her uncle usually did. His entire demeanor softened at the mention of their grizzled old guide. "Nard is a local drunk whose leg was gnawed off by those things back before the sentinels drove them across the mountains. He has some sort of vendetta but never manages to exact his revenge because he's an incompetent retard."

"Mister Montanha, that word is offensive!"

Ignoring her protest entirely, he continued ushering her up the winding mountain path. "On more than one occasion, he's lured adventurers with quests for rewards he doesn't own just to use them as bait so he can pick off a few more of these creatures. If your cousins are smart, they'll realize what he's doing and ditch him for the lodge. It's the easiest spot for us to reach through the secret passage anyway. Is there anybody-"

"Secret passage? How?"

"Through the basement, now focus. Is there anybody left at the lodge?"

She grew quiet as he led her downward on another path that led them toward a narrow crevice in the cliff face. Relief that her husband was safe and sound didn't decrease her sense of worry for her cousins. "Uniol and Narrus are there...but what about my cousins? We can't just leave them!"

Impossibly so, Mister Montanha somehow wedged himself into the crevice motioning for her to follow him into the cavernous passage. "Be objective. We need to warn the others not to trust this douchebag; your cousins will realize it soon enough. Now, come on...I'll explain just what exactly these things are on the way."

Reluctantly, she followed him through the maze of caves inside the mountain, many of which were carved with old elven runes and lit with wisp lanterns along the way. She'd been through a lot in a matter of only a few minutes: from being ambushed to mobbed to falling off a mountain and then told that her cousins were being used as bait. Clutching her bow, Corrianna let out one last deep breath before clearing her mind and asking the tauren spirit walker just what exactly was going on.


	17. Sharimara 2

A/N: back to Sharimara's perspective here.

Sharimara glared at Kirana as they walked in a diamond with Issinia and Selia, scouring the southern ridges of the mountain. "Nobody holds daggers with the blade pointing upward," she scolded, finding her irritation at the woman's incompetence rapidly increasing even once she'd ensured that Kirana wouldn't be able to harass her brother again.

The southern face of the mountain was steep, and their descent was only made easy by the fact that there were so many pine trees to prevent them from sliding. Regardless, her patience was running thin and she found herself unable to relax into her usual prebattle calmness. Her company left a little to be desired: Kirana infuriated her by merely existing, and Selia irritated her even after the halfhearted apology earlier in the night. At least she had her sister present with her; Issinia's usual annoying moralizing and judgmentalism were absent when they were faced with a crisis, and her leadership was quite competent.

Not that Sharimara had particularly strong faith in what Nard had said...he was clearly a crazy hermit who'd probably lost his leg in a gardening accident rather than a real fight. But experience as a warden had taught her that victory went to predators: those who stalked their prey, rather than holing up inside of a lodge and waiting for the enemy to decide to reveal themselves. Of course, claiming that Nard's superstition sounding idea might actually work was the only way she could have convinced the others to go along. Even her brothers weren't quite as aggressive or foolhardy as her, and she wasn't able to simply come out and admit that she felt it a better idea to just attack the monsters preemptively and hamstring them en masse. No, a more intellectual sounding reason had to be given, and what was probably just insane rambling on the part of Nard had granted her the perfect cover. Once the others agreed, she had no doubt that they'd simply track down the monsters and wipe them all out, regardless of whether or not Nard's concoction actually worked.

Kirana continued to look at the uneven ground in front of them, but Sharimara could sense the displeasure roiling inside the smaller woman's mind. "This is how I cut and slash," Kirana mumbled, her shoulders held up haughty but her voice rather low. Sharimara ignored it, and then noticed Kirana peering at her via peripheral vision. "Bat ears," the woman then muttered while pretending to breathe heavily due to the hike.

Playing it cool, Sharimara just acted like she didn't even hear it. Strike one, she thought to herself as they continued hiking downward.

Issinia's eyes always glowed more powerfully than those of everybody else, but as she probed the area for another moonwell, the silver glow was especially powerful, providing a measure of extra visibility beyond what the wisps swirling around them were already casting. Though not entirely in a trance, the older sister wasn't holding on to her lance as tightly as usual, and Sharimara kept a more prepared grip on her double bladed fel glaive. Selia, at least, could be relied upon in a tough situation given her basic training as an archer.

Ahead of them, Issinia began to slow down. "I feel it...it isn't particularly strong, but I can feel it," she announced loudly over the wind. The snow whipping in Sharimara's ears interfered with her hearing and upset her to no end, but her sister seemed to understand that there was no point in keeping their voices down. "It doesn't seem distinguished beyond the other moonwells at all."

Selia hummed through her nose in a concerned (and annoying) manner. "You mean the ones behind the lodge?" she asked.

"Yes...I need to get closer before I can tell for sure, but nothing seems to be special about this one at all."

While the others groaned, Sharimara remained relatively unaffected by the predicament. She was in a bad mood due to Kirana's presence and the weather, but otherwise she wasn't bothered by the prospects of the moonwell they'd been sent to turning out to be a dud. If anything, her fingers were itching for their foray down the mountain to take enough time for them to encounter some of the creatures head on.

Eerie silence fell over the group, and they found themselves descending even farther without incident, much to Sharimara's chagrin. The wisps that had been following them began to dance around, hovering forward toward another faintly shimmering light off in the distance.

"This is it," Issinia said as her eyes returned to their normal powerful glow. "This is the only moonwell I sense in the area...and I still don't detect anything special about it at all."

Selia continued following and actually walked out in front once they reached flat, even ground on a ridge. The area wasn't particularly expansive, and she only needed a few steps to reach the stone wall of the well. "Perhaps the special qualities are simply minerals," she surmised out loud.

Issinia appeared less than pleased. "Well...the stranger claimed that we need a phial of the water here for the mixture he wants to make. I found two, but I need to bless the moonwell first. I'll need to concentrate during that time."

"We have your back, sis," Sharimara said while stepping closer toward her. "Just do what you have to do."

As much as they argued about ethics and world views, the two of them trusted each other with their lives and more. A very familiar, understanding nod was shared between them before Issinia turned back to face the moonwell and set her lance down in preparation for whatever hymn she planned on whispering to herself.

Taking her place right behind her, Sharimara stood watch. Though the two of them were the only ones actually wearing heavy armor (she'd finally donned hers in the rush to break into two teams) she feared little for the other two companions with them. Selia was fast enough and had enough sense to lead any potential enemies toward Sharimara, and Kirana was...expendable. That part was just another detail that she didn't bother sharing with or trying to explain to anybody else.

Selia stepped away from the moonwell and stood watch, pacing around slowly as she looked through the trees for potential attackers. Like a nervous child before a shot from a nurse, Kirana followed the archer around, twirling her daggers as if she actually knew what she was doing. Sharimara looked the other way, continuing to shield Issinia from any potential sneak attacks but also spying on the conversation taking place behind her with absolutely no remorse.

A few seconds of silence passed, punctuated only by the occasionally raised voice of Issinia's laboriously long incantation. Eventually, the two pureblooded night elves behind them began to speak, though it was difficult to catch every word over the whistle of the wind.

"...it going?" one of them asked the other, though the speaker wasn't clear, nor was the entire answer.

"...can get out of this alive...worried about Del," said who Sharimara assumed was Selia.

More murmurs reached her suspicious ears, not entirely clear across the whipping, snowy air. "...get out...finally...Navarion," replied Kirana. Sharimara's ears pricked up immediately, her interest and acrimony both piqued. "He's...to...idiocy. So easy...manipulate..."

Sharimara didn't need context; her blood had already started to boil, causing the heat to rise in her cheeks despite the winter cold. To her great surprise, Selia actually didn't kiss her off for once.

"...through a lot. Told Narrus...told Issa...told Del...told me...ex girlfriend."

Kirana let out a cynical laugh. "What? He...ridiculous...fifteen years ago...ing whiny boy...mind games..."

Strike two, strike three, strike thirty six thousand, four hundred and seventy five, Sharimara thought to herself while gritting her teeth.

Leaving Sharimara by the moonwell, she spun around and stomped over toward the two smaller people. As if confirming the accusations in her mind, Kirana immediately stepped behind Selia, who appeared completely oblivious.

"I heard every loa damned word you said," Sharimara hissed, finally causing Selia to spin around. For once, Tiondel's girlfriend didn't appear either afraid of or passive aggressive toward her.

Kirana gulped visibly, but refused to back up any more. "We were just chatting about the situation," the fake red headed night elf replied nervously, all defiance gone from her.

Green eyes burned down at the street trash in front of her, absolutely convinced of what she knew she'd heard. "So you think my brother's an idiot, do you? Just some poor sap you can play mind games with?" she asked rhetorically, not actually feeling any need to hear an answer.

Selia reached out and touched her arm, as if trying to mediate. "Shari, it's not what you're thinking." Although the usual contempt was absent, she knew that Selia was a good enough actress to cover her friend's ass if need be. How apt; birds of a feather did indeed flock together.

"Yeah, Shari! Why are you eavesdropping anyway?"

Rage magnified in Sharimara's veins at the redhead's insolence. "Nobody manipulates my brother when he's on the rebound!" she hissed while grabbing the sleeve of Kirana's jacket with her free hand.

Glass phials clinked behind them. "Shari, what's the matter?" Issinia asked, obviously having finished and totally oblivious to the conversation behind her. The battle priestess walked up to the rest of them, and while she didn't forcibly remove Sharimara's hand from the little weasel's sleeve, she did give the younger sister that look.

Sensing that she was losing ground, Sharimara tried to bully Kirana into a confession, her jealousy for her brother overpowering her sense of tact. "I saw you hanging on him from the very beginning, always standing in a way where he had to brush past you to move and not letting anybody else sit next to him."

"I...Shari, I don't know what you're talking about," Kirana chucked nervously.

"You make him touch your hand for stupid reasons!"

"Shari, leave this now; the wisps have found something!" Issinia said, stuffing the phials away in her travel pouch and pulling her lance out again.

Sure enough, the wisps floated uphill toward the part of the woods they'd descended from, bouncing around and illuminating the already visible creatures. "They have the advantage of higher ground; brace yourselves!" Issinia cried out as she crouched and held her lance at the ready.

Easily falling into formation, Sharimara stood on the other side of the ridge, twirling her fel glaive in circles as she watched the loping white figures approach. Selia moved toward the very back edge of the ridge, already firing arrows before the creatures even broke out into a full charge. The screams were pained and angry, sending Sharimara's heart thumping in anticipation of the conflict she'd wished for. This was where she felt she belonged: not beating up her brothers' girlfriends or pushing around twerpy gold diggers, but in the thick of the slaughter, racking up wins and walking over piles of bad guys.

More arrows continued to fly, and Sharimara even sent a few stray rays of starlight that burned at the dozen or so creatures charging toward them. The agitation it caused pleased Sharimara greatly, and she couldn't even restrain herself; charging forward on her own, she met the first wave of ghastly beings head on.

Spinning and twirling both her wrist and her entire body, she hacked and slashed with both ends of one of her father's former weapons. The fel glaive sliced clean through the hands and fingers of a few of the creatures, leaving them alive but mostly unable to mount an attack as she pressed forward and cut into the others. Issinia was much more precise, disabling them with her lance and leaving them unable to even rise from the ground as she quite literally just poked at them with her polearm.

Corpses piled up, arrows flew, bladed and tips spilled noxious black blood and mayhem ensued before dying out far too early. The screaming, frenzied creatures never yielded, rushing forward to meet their collective doom in a massacre that Sharimara almost felt was too easy. Desiring a little bit more than easy target practice, she reached for one of the thrashing albino monsters and lifted it by the throat, cutting it down the middle and tossing one half of its body to the side.

From the corner of her eye, she noticed two silver orbs aimed at her. Snow whipped in between all of them, and to an extent even Issinia's backside and the hilt of her lance became just vague, dark outlines as the wisps danced around frantically. A shadow moved in between the strands of white, and silver flickered just before a loud bang rang out.

"Aaarrgghhh!" Sharimara grunted like a yeti as the blast ripped a hole in her stomach.

Plate armor was heavy and cumbersome; it provided excellent protection, but also restricted movement. To compensate, Sharimara had a suit of armor fitted that left her joints and a very small part of her midriff free; the added mobility came at the expense of defense over a small portion of her body, but her father's regeneration could take care of that. What she wasn't prepared for, though, was a lucky shot from a firearm that just happened to hit the exact spot where her midriff was exposed, piercing her hide at the right angle to open a hole in her intestines.

Dropping her weapon, she immediately fell to her knees, clutching the wound as Issinia finished off the last few creatures. Searing pain throbbed in Sharimara's abdomen, and to her surprise it was Selia who rushed to her aid.

"Let me!" the usually irritating woman cried as she ripped a sizeable strip off of her own cloak to apply pressure to the wound.

Sharimara just focused on keeping herself in a prone position on her hands and knees rather than slumping into a heap from system shock. While she was no medic, she knew enough of battlefield first aid to understand that, unlike in the antics at the Darnassus theatre, a person couldn't simply walk away from a wound to the abdomen. In most cases, consciousness would be lost in a matter of seconds, not minutes, and there was precious little time to stop the bleeding as well as prevent bacteria inside her intestines from infecting other parts of her body. Biting back her desire to scream, she clenched her teeth and waited for Issinia's plated boots to pound over toward her.

"What happened!" the priestess asked, obviously upset but surprisingly in control of her emotions.

Selia continued to apply pressure to the wound. "Kirana missed with a shot of her gun and caught Shari just under her stomach," she replied.

The fine hairs of Sharimara's mane stood up on her upper back, sending alarm bells ringing in her mind. Even as she began to feel dizzy and short of breath, a hundred and one questions floated through her mind, chief among them how Kirana had gotten ahold of a gun. Another form of sharp pain shot through her midsection, eliciting a loud hiss as Issinia dug her fingers into the bloody hole and dug the bullet out. A priestess of the moon was expected to wield the power of the goddess both offensively and defensively; unfortunately, Issinia excelled at the former much more than the latter.

"I'll handle the wound, Selia; get one of the phials out of my pouch and help her to drink it!"

"I'm on it," Selia replied, pressing the opened phial to Sharimara's lips in a matter of seconds. The pure water of the moonwell felt soothing in her throat, like honey or green tea with mint, and it produced a sort of calming effect that ended her sense of panic.

A silver glow shone, and Issinia began working a basic healing spell to stitch the wound shut. Kirana just stood there, clutching the unloaded pistol to her chest - Navarion's unloaded pistol - as she fixated an unreadable expression on the healing process. The moonwell water calmed Sharimara down, but a cold, hard logic replaced her previous rage, and she sneered.

"You...ent," she urked out, unable to form the complete accusation due to the fact that Issinia was still struggling to close the freaking hole in her intestines.

Kirana continued to look at her, a measure of fear twinkling at the corner of the woman's eyes. Her lower lip stuck out a bit, and to a less observant person, she might have appeared contrite for what she'd done. Sharimara, however, noticed those small details in people she didn't like; and she most definitely noticed the very slight upward curve of Kirana's left upper lip.

Her sister's rough attempt to lift her into a standing position brought her back to the present. "We can't stay here; I lack the expertise to finish healing on my own, and I can't risk expending my entire mana pool. Uniol knows basic healing as well; we have to go back so he and I can finish this together. Otherwise, we're all sitting ducks out here. Selia, get her other arm over your shoulder."

Surprising Sharimara with her cooperation once again, Selia swiftly sheathed her bow and followed the directions. "Of course. Shari, you're going to be okay; we just have to reach a safe place," Selia reassured her.

Nodding in assent, Sharimara allowed the others to practically carry her uphill in the direction from whence they'd come. That Kirana was the only one with free hands and this the only one who Sharimara could trust to carry her glaive bothered her immensely. Resigning herself to settling the score later, she let them carry her back, trying not to think about the fact that she'd just been shot almost fatally for the first time ever despite wearing heavy armor.


	18. Corrianna 4

A/N: this is the last chapter narrated by Corrianna. She had more exposure than the others in terms of perspective, but this sort of was her story with special guests, so to speak.

Having heard a mouthful about the nature of the creatures they were up against, Corrianna finally relaxed once she knew the much simpler truth. The winding, meandering cave maze inside of the mountain was almost soothing in a way, especially when she'd just been attacked by monsters and then slipped off the top of a mountain. A certain anxiety over her cousins still writhed down in the pit of her stomach, but Mister Montanha's cold, hard logic had helped her deal with that: she couldn't fly, and even if she had wings then she couldn't fly in a snowstorm, so the easiest way to reach them was by taking the longcut (definitely not a shortcut) that was the cave maze, which the tauren thankfully knew like the back of his hand.

If only the man with a bull's head could walk a little bit faster...

"Here we are," Mister Montanha said while stopping in front of a wide, flat wooden wall. He began to feel around the edges of the wooden panel, and Corrianna already knew what he was looking for.

"Oh, is this the back of the wooden shelves that hold that really shiny looking highborne pottery?"

A click and a whir sounded off when he pulled on some sort of unseen lever by the edge of the panel. Although he seemed irritated by her question, he didn't send any sort of snarky reply her way. Swiftly but not violently, the shelves swung open and she found the two of them in a little hallway on the opposite end of the ground floor from the kitchen. Heavy footsteps thudded on the floor and within seconds, the two of them were faced by what appeared to be a suit of armor accosting them with a polearm.

"Eep!" Corrianna yelped while jumping for Mister Montanha. Ironically, he was so short for a tauren that he was about the same size of the soldier in front of them, yet appeared annoyed rather than afraid.

After half a second of hesitation, the man lowered his naginata. "Goddess, Corra, how did you get here?" came Narrus' voice from behind a helmet with two glowing eyes in the middle of the face guard.

Uniol wasn't far behind once his wife's voice was heard. "Corra!" he exclaimed with such concern that her heart melted even despite her lingering concern for her family members.

The young initiate with barely amber eyes rounded the corner from the atrium, earning an annoyed grunt from both Mister Montanha and Narrus. "The front door is undefended!" the older night elf huffed while returning from whence they came without a word more.

Ignoring the rebuff, Corrianna jumped into her husband's arms, allowing him to twirl her around while the tauren cleared his throat.

"I exist. I'm literally standing right here," Mister Montanha huffed.

Uniol set her down and turned to face the bovine man. "Mister Montanha, you used the secret passageway...what's going on? Where are the others?"

Corrianna frowned. "We were separated...Mister Montanha saved me when I slid off the mountainside, but Navarion and Del were mobbed by the creatures," she sighed sadly, "and then we followed the labyrinth here. They're still out there, and they weren't in good shape when I left them."

Uniol cupped the back of her had and patted her hair down for her. "Mister Montanha, I can't thank you enough-"

"Stop repeating my name so much."

"Intruders!" Narrus announced from the main room. While Corrianna and Uniol froze up due to their lack of experience, the tauren brushed past and pulled out his hand ax, ready to hack and slash despite being a healer.

The front double door began to shake just as the married couple came to their senses and ran out across the atrium. "It's us!" Selia cried from the other side of the door. "Shari's been hurt, we need help healing!"

Narrus kept his polearm aimed at the door, either paranoid or cautious depending on how one looked at the situation, Corrianna guessed. "It's open!" he called out after reaching forward to unlock the door and then steadying his weapon again.

The doors flew open, bringing in copious amounts of snow as well as the howl of the wind. All four women blocked out the light provided by wisps, a number of which entered and started to float around the house. Selia and Issinia led Sharimara inside, her arms around their shoulders as she hissed and growled every so often. They directly brought her over to one of the cushions, laying her flat on her back as she pulled her overcoat off in reaction to the warmth of the lodge. Blood stained coat fur was wrapped around her waist, yet her armor looked completely undamaged. Kirana closed and locked the doors behind them, hanging away from the rest of the group.

Corrianna and Uniol knelt at either side of the giantess, and the shortest member of the family gripped Sharimara's plate covered hand in both of her own. "Shari, what happened!" she asked hurriedly.

The green eyed woman scowled, but Issinia prevented her from answering. "A bullet pierced her intestines; I cleansed the wound the best I could and healed enough tissue to prevent hemorrhaging, but left it open since I wasn't sure that I'd have enough mana remaining to properly heal the internal damage."

Uniol's hands began to glow green, though a crippling nervousness in the initiate's eyes showed itself clearly. "Well, I've never healed outside of a proper den, but I can-"

"Out of the way, kid," Mister Montanha interrupted in a gruff voice that sounded like it belonged to a much larger tauren. Uniol looked a bit offended at first, and was it anybody else, Corrianna guessed that an argument might ensue, but this was the groundskeeper; he actually had even more of a historical presence than the son of the founding sentinel did. "Do you feel cold, Green Eyes?" he asked the wounded woman on the cushion.

Sharimara pursed her lips to respond, but stopped and winced as if the effort hurt her. She lifted a single hand and rotated it in both directions slightly as if to indicate mild to moderate coldness.

"Then your body has started to go into system shock. I smell troll heat, but weak, so I'm guessing you're half troll. You could survive unaided, but you'd catch an infection and have a long healing process. I'm going to run a major healing job...I need to put you to sleep. Do I have your consent?"

For a split second, Sharimara turned her head and glared at Kirana before looking to Issinia with an unreadable expression. After the two sisters shared a silent message between them, she looked at Corrianna, lowering her lower eyelids in a signal that Corrianna remembered from their childhood for signifying that they were being watched.

"Yeah," the giantess coughed, resting her head down on the cushion.

The tauren wasted no time, holding his hand over her forehead as white, smoke like light emitted from his palm. It was almost as if he was healing her head, though his intent was clear when she fell into a peaceful sleep. Immediately thereafter, he shifted his focus to the still bleeding wound that had perfectly caught in the gap between her metal belt and her body armor.

Issinia and Corrianna met each other's gaze.

"How did she get shot-"

"Where are the others-"

They both stopped themselves and fell into a round of 'no, you go first' until Mister Montanha snorted derisively.

"Corra, just tell her first."

Too worried on multiple fronts to be upset at him, she started to talk. "Nard led us in circles because he's a nut job who had a vendetta after these creatures gnawed his leg off ten years ago. He wanted to use us all as bait so he could take his revenge, but he bit off more than he could chew and we were overwhelmed. I slipped off the mountain and Mister Montanha caught me and told me the truth about our guide." She frowned, feeling the full brunt of the emotional sting now. "Del is strong and Navarion knows voodoo, but...we can't wait much longer."

Kirana stepped forward and sneered at them both. "Why should we believe this guy," she asked while pointing toward Mister Montanha contemptuously, "and not Nard? If these creatures have been around so long, why haven't they killed the groundskeeper yet? How do we not know that he-"

"I'm a spirit walker, you Earthmother damned idiot," the tauren snapped hard and fast at her, even leaving off his healing job long enough for Uniol to start poking him in the arm. "We have an ethereal form that protects us from any interaction with the physical world; not even Sargeras himself could hurt me."

"Then why haven't you killed them after ten years!" Kirana blurted out, clearly offended by his language.

"Because it goes both ways; I can't interact with the physical world when I do that. Mind focusing on the crazy old mountain man who led you on a wild goose chase for an herb that doesn't exist and a regular old moonwell, and not...oh, I don't know, the guy healing your friend?"

Issinia ignored Kirana, looking instead to the tauren and then Corrianna. "Is this true?" she asked, revelation spreading across her face.

"I know herbalism, and I've never heard of a frostbloom; Nard acted awfully shifty when I called him out on it."

Mister Montanha continued healing away, ignoring them all and sending more bendy strands of grey light into Sharimara's wound. Selia frowned when everybody fell silent for a moment. "So what are these things, then?" she asked intently. "They look like withered, though this area has both Kaldorei and highborne historically...are they wretched? Or darkfallen? Maybe undead-"

"I don't know and I don't care! What the hell does it matter what they are!" Mister Montanha answered, his irritation seeming to grow with every word that met his furry ears. "Why does every bad guy need to be understood or analyzed? What happened to the good old days when bad guys were just bad and got ganked?"

"I miss those days," Narrus replied in a surprisingly soft voice for a man prepared to kill monsters.

Glaring at the white furred healer kneeling over Sharimara, Selia tried to pry what she could out of him. "So what would you have us do, then?" she asked, a strong passive aggressive tone infecting her voice.

"It doesn't matter what I or anybody else wants you to do. From what Corra here says, you have two of your own left out there. Maybe half of these things are dead by now-"

"More than half; we took out over a dozen of them," Issinia interjected.

Mister Montanha snorted mockingly. "More than half...why are any of you still here? You're closer to wiping these things out than the patrols ever got across the decades; those things are literally lining up for you to kill them. Go on, get out there!" The white and grey light emitting from his hands brightened, and his eyes glowed as he concentrated a little more, having already said his piece.

"He's right," Issinia conceded after a few seconds of contemplation. "We know Nard was lying to us, but we also know that we can destroy these things easily if we work together. Narrus, can you stay here with Shari and Mister Montanha?"

"Of course, dear. None shall pass. Except for all of you, of course."

Corrianna felt nervous excitement fill her. Her first involvement in a real combat situation had gone poorly; perhaps with Uniol at her side this time (in his first involvement), she'd find herself more confident and focused. She'd certainly need that sense of focus if they were going to save her two remaining cousins.

Issinia turned to both of them, as well as to Selia and Kirana. "There's no time for rest; we need to leave now. Pray that the goddess has preserved them long enough for our arrival!" she exclaimed while waving for them all to follow her to the double doors. She pushed them open, striding back into the snow she'd just come in from and leading the others outside.

Issinia, Uniol and Selia marched into the snow, walking in the general direction they'd seen the group go before initially parting ways. They'd need Corrianna, of course, since she was the one who knew exactly where to walk. Before she followed them back outside, however, she paused long enough to grab Kirana by the wrist and yank the woman outside, preventing her from hiding behind a coat rack near the door and forcing her to join them on the trek to save the last two missing members of their group.


	19. Issinia 2

A/N: another side of Issinia...everybody has their limits in terms of tolerance.

Issinia charged through the snow, keeping in step with Corrianna as the party of five searched for the two missing Hearthglen brothers. Although the wind hadn't increased in power or velocity, it continued to howl the same as it had previously. Battering them with snowflakes, the weather hampered their movements and forced them to think a little bit more carefully as to where they walked, though the basic trajectory of Corrianna's guidance remained the same.

For roughly ten minutes, they all marched. Ten minutes technically wasn't a long time, but then again rushing to aid her brothers before they were mobbed by weird zombie elves wasn't technically a normal situation. Despite her prowess in the combat aspects of being a priestess of the moon, Issinia still felt the apprehension nip at her heels as they marched, mostly in silence, toward the last known location of her brothers. The wind whistled, and she convinced herself that the sound was the reason why she couldn't hear any noise coming from their direction.

A number of thoughts raced through her mind as they searched. From the beginning, this trip was supposed to have been a fun family excursion courtesy of Uniol's mother. They'd all been so happy, so excited to spend a weekend together away from their jobs and parents and in laws, relaxing around hearth fires while sipping on cups of hot chocolate and talking about nothing. Not only had their weekend been ruined, but it had turned deadly for a few of the revelers. How they would explain the situation to their parents would be a very good question; how they would explain the situation to their parents if something happened to her brothers...she couldn't even finish the thought.

Shaking the pessimistic ideas away, she tried to focus on the task at hand, eyeing the wisps that were floating ahead to bounce around and signal obstacles such as tree trunks, sheer drops and small boulders. "Corra, are we close?" she asked loudly over the wind.

Her cousin appeared a bit emotional next to her, obviously fretting as they approached the location where she'd lost sight of them. "Yes, yes this was the place! Toward the left and further down this slope...they must be here! We were here!" The small woman's frantic voice carried over the wind, and the group slowed down their pace and walked.

Snow jumped up beneath their boots, and the five of them even spread out a bit. Corrianna looked positively morose as they all tried to listen for signs of the others, but Issinia made sure to leave her be; any attempt to comfort the woman might bring on a new wave of melancholy emotion, diminishing her focus and drive. Selia appeared to be much more controlled, but like Issinia herself Selia's face was visibly strained as they all searched. Were it not for the howl of the wind, the situation could almost have been described as somber.

Just as Issinia was about to resort to commanding the wisps to look for her manually, a scream reached her ears over the wind.

"To the north!" she cried, catching everybody's attention at once. "I hear a person in trouble to the north!"

Corrianna ran to her side, her bow held low as she tried to focus. "It's Nard. Damn it, it's just Nard!" She kicked a pile of snow in anger, and the flakes were quicky blown away in the wind.

Much less prone to wallowing, Issinia began to dash forward anyway. "He's the best chance we have to find them!" she shouted as she ran, referring to her two brothers. "Come on, if he dies then we won't have any leads!"

More footsteps sank into the snow behind her, though Corrianna soon managed to burst out ahead. The sounds of Nard screaming about the apocalypse and black rain grew even louder, and then the first screeches of the creatures started. There was a large number of them by the sound of it, and although Nard's voice sounded ragged and pained, the creatures sounded frenzied enough that the nut job has obviously wrecked havoc on their numbers.

A huge beam of faerie fire blasted down from the sky, lighting up the mountainside temporarily and providing a full view of gnarled, bony figures besieging a tree.

"Whoa!" Corrianna gasped as the group approached within thirty yards of the area, which promptly fell dark again.

"Goddess, light our path!" Issinia shouted, sending a large group of wisps sailing through the air to illuminate the area again in response to her battle cry.

Arrows began to fly at a rapid pace. Both the traditional fletched arrows of Selia and the conjured projectiles of Corrianna flew, raining down on a sizeable group of white figures with gnashing teeth and flailing arms tumbling about. A one legged figure clung high in the canopy of a leafless tree whose trunk had become thorny from nature magic, and Nard slumped among the branches as he stopped casting at them. His faerie fire spell was continued by Uniol, who piled on the pressure by further weakening the withered elves and causing many of them to fall from the dual volleys of arrows.

As the others handled the panicked group of creatures, Issinia charged forward into the thick of it, running a few of them through with her lance as she moved directly over toward the tree. The thorns that had been conjured parted ways for her as she kept up toward the canopy, and then promptly rematerialized and stabbed the ashy hands and feet of a few of the monsters that tried to follow her up. Nard barely even reacted as she roughly grabbed him by the collar with her free hand, but he did at least meet her eyes when she yelled at him.

"Where are my brothers?! What did you do!"

His head rolled around as she shook him, though his eyes appeared to be completely clear and lucid as she did. The sort of defiance of a person with a death wish boiled up inside of his eyes.

"The goddess takes whom she wills-"

"Don't bring Her name into this!" Issinia hissed at him.

A hard stare met hers, and Nard shot her a glance that made her understand that the scruffy recluse wouldn't be browbeaten. "What's done is done," he muttered.

Disbelief bubbled up as her heart rejected his words. With a furious cry, she cast Nard down, throwing him straight in the middle of the mob of screeching creatures. During the part of the battle that they hadn't witnessed, his peg leg had been broken off and his mobility shot. Immediately conjuring thorny, entangling roots out of the ground around himself, Nard stupidly gave away his position to all of the monsters. As if they'd all held a grudge against him for a long time, they turned their attention away from Corrianna, Selia, Uniol and Kirana, all four of whom had been kiting the white figures in circles on a wild goose chase. Instead the remaining creatures turned tail and absorbed the arrows in their backs, a number of them falling until only four were left to set upon Nard.

A defiant scream rang out as the man proved unable to accept his own death, bitter and resentful while the monsters tore at his flesh and bit off chunks of him while he was still alive. Magic drained out of him as the creatures feasted upon his mana as well, cannibalizing him both physically and mentally as they huddled around his thrashing figure.

"There are more of them!" Corrianna cried as the wisps illuminated a huge wave of the creatures flowing downward at the tree from higher ground.

The screeches echoed even louder than the wind, and the creatures quicky formed a crescent formation as they tried to surround the group. Less anxiety and more battle fury welled up inside Issinia; she might not be the best healer, but as a battle priestess, she was a young prodigy, having neared three decades of life. Her mana pool had regenerated somewhat, and when she saw the wave crashing toward them, she grit her teeth and prepared to try a tactic she'd never used in a live combat situation before.

"Everybody huddle around the tree!" she called out to the others. "Come, gather around me!"

Not wasting any time, the others turned tail and ran toward her, the creatures kicking up a huge snow cloud as they rapidly approached. Hiding beneath the leafless branches, her four companions turned to face their attackers head on, looking between them and Issinia nervously as they waited for her to lead.

Issinia's pores tingled as she called upon the most advanced spell she knew, and most likely the most advanced spell she'd ever need. Her heart rate increased and a dragging sensation rumbled in the pit of her stomach as she began to offer up a chunk of her mana pool that was greater than what she'd ever prepared at one time. Blasting dummy targets at the practice yard in Darnassus was one thing; channeling the power of the moon itself with only seconds to spare was another thing entirely. As Nard's screams died away and Kirana slit the throats of the remaining creatures feasting upon him, the next wave of creatures leapt closely enough for Issinia to discern the liquid black orbs that were their dead looking eyes.

The tingling in her pores temporarily turned to pain as more magic than she'd ever conjured before was swept out of her and into the air all around them. Invoking the power of the goddess, she cast her starfall spell, the last resort that a priestess of the moon had in her arsenal when things were going wrong. Beams of pure silver light shot down from the sky, causing minor tremors in the ground and sending the snow flying into the air.

Creatures were knocked off their feet and flew left and right as multiple beams of light shot into the ground and then disappeared. Randomly and repeatedly, her channeling of the moonlight shook their enemies, stunning her companions into silence as the creatures were disintegrated into nothingness. Those that were narrowly missed by the beams were too dazed to mount an offense, and Selia and Corrianna quickly picked off all of the stragglers.

Before she'd even finished channeling her spell, an explosion rocked the side of the entire mountain. All four of her companions fell down below, and the slant of the uneven terrain sent them sliding toward the cliffside. Corpses of the creatures killed solely by arrows tumbled down, plummeting into the unseeable darkness of the valley hundreds of feet below. The night sky was temporarily lit up again, this time by the non magical color of a chemical blast.

Knocked off balance in the boughs of the tree, Issinia fumbled the last few beams of her starfall spell, rocking the ground a little bit too closely to the tree's roots and sending herself tumbling after the others. Up became down and down became up as she rolled, and she covered her head to focus on safety instead of stability. The brief image of Corrianna and Uniol clinging together and wedged painfully against a rock reassured her that at least some of them were okay, but that sense of reassurance was only temporary. When Issinia grabbed onto a tree branch, she realized that it was a random broken branch rather than part of a rooted tree, and her roll turned into a full on free fall.

"Elune!" she cried as she felt her back leave the snow, and desperate hands flailed around when the darkness opened up before her.

At the very last second, her hand caught on to a tree root jutting out of the cliffside, loosening it from its place but still keeping herself from falling to a quick death. Her heart thumping so hard that she could feel the vibration in her chest plate, she tried to hold still rather than leap back upward without any sense of balance. Calmness and precision overruled panic and fear, and she found herself silently hissing as she clasped at the cliffside with both hands and visually sought a path to climb back up over the top.

Shouts that belonged to neither her companions nor the creatures echoed from a good distance away, though she had no time to focus on that now; the will to live drove her, and she started feeling for footholds on the rocky mountainside. When she felt her foot grabbed away from her and her hold on life slipping, she screamed.

"Stop squirming!" Kirana growled while sticking her other hand inside the back of Issinia's left greave for a tighter grip.

Grabbing and pulling on Issinia's limbs as if she were an inanimate object or a piece of the landscape, Kirana frantically flailed and sought places to grip, finding them only to let go in her desperation on more than one occasion. Despite the fact that Issinia was much larger, she felt herself starting to slip from the small cracks and roots she was holding on to.

"Hold still, you're setting us both off-"

"Shut up, stop yelling you fuckwad!" Kirana screeched back like one of the monsters, growing even more panicked as she felt Issinia start to slip but obviously didn't seem to understand the reason why.

Ignoring any instability she caused, the smaller woman tried to crawl up Issinia's back, swiftly pulling and then letting go as she brought Issinia down even further every time she actually managed to climb up an inch or so.

"Kirana, we're both going to fall-"

"Not if I can help it!"

The way that Kirana fisted her hand in Issinia's mane and yanked told the priestess all she needed to know. In the eyes of the shifty eyed bar girl who'd been clinging to her brother for the entire night, Issinia was only a ledge to be gripped and a stepping stone to safety. If they continued jostling for leverage, either one of them would fall or both, and a different kind of panic set in as Issinia realized that Kirana didn't seem to care what happened either way as long as the equation included her own survival.

Finally done turning the other cheek, she reared back and dug her fingernails into the cartilage of Kirana's ear and twisted two hundred and seventy degrees. The smaller woman screamed, trying to pull on as many locks of Issinia's indigo hair as possible. The gloves were off, and without any sort of guilt or remorse at all, Issinia tore so hard at Kirana's twisted ear that either it would be ripped right off of her head or she'd simply move.

The latter was what happened. Throwing one last spiteful kick at Issinia's hamstring, Kirana involuntarily snapped her head back, loosening her grip just enough that Issinia could let go of the woman's ear and elbow her in the face. Too dazed by the elbow to scream, Kirana merely choked on cold air as she plummeted to her death, disappearing into the darkness of a valley deeper than an Ashenvale purplewood was tall.

Able to climb unimpeded, Issinia crawled her way back into the slope, digging her fingers into the snow until she reached her lance and grabbed it, using the hilt for more traction as she dragged herself up. A very large hand grabbed her by the free one, pulling her the rest of the way up as she fell into someone very familiar.

"Issa, thank goddess!"

Her heart froze. Pushing herself away, her eyes drifted up the large figure and toward the battered frame of her older brother. Though the creatures had hurt him, his healing magic was still lightly glowing over marks that had probably once been from teeth and fingernails, and Navarion appeared more or less unblemished if beaten.

In one of several reverses of fortune in extremely short periods of time that night, Issinia nearly went weak in the knees as she realized that her brothers had not only survived, but were right there in front of her. "You're alive!" she yelled while dropping her lance, squeezing him into a bear hug and lifting him up off of his feet for a few seconds despite being half a foot shorter than him.

The sound of Selia and Tiondel leaping onto each other in the snow sent Issinia's head spinning, and the feeling of Corrianna grabbing both her and Navarion further imbalanced her. All three of them fell in the snow, garnering a laugh from the very much alive oldest brother as he let his guard down and didn't even bother springing back to his feet.

"How! Tell us, what happened!" she cried, still trying to hug him even when he tried to push her and Corrianna off of him so he could breathe. Selia and Tiondel regained their composure a bit more quickly after having been helped up by Uniol.

Before he even started to talk, the glowing silver eyes of sentinels - healthy, uncorrupted night elves, unlike the hideous corpses laying all around them - alerted her to the presence of non hostile strangers.

"I healed us until we could run away, and then those withered things chased Nard instead because his spells were big and flashy," Navarion explained. "Del always carries a sample of sodium nitrate and a few herbs in his pouch because...well, alchemists are weird like that."

"I saved your life, you ingrate!" Tiondel shouted at them.

"And he set off a makeshift flare to call these servicewomen from the Sentinel Air Force who were running a flyby. Del set off a second flare to find you guys, but...well, he mixed in the rest of the fireweed sample he had in his pouch for no good reason, and nearly blew up the mountain."

Out from the snow, a few hippogriffs trotted, following behind a group of sentinels with black blood on their glaives. The armored sentries spread out, obviously having received the rundown from Navarion and Tiondel given the fact that they asked no questions of Issinia and the others and simply scoured the area.

Selia, Tiondel and Uniol joined them, standing in a rough circle as they all caught their breath and gazed upon the few remaining corpses around them. The screeches of the creatures had stopped, and in her head Issinia tallied the dozens of monsters their combined efforts had killed according to what she'd personally struck down as well as what the others had told her. The numbers were high, and when Tiondel noticed her rapid eye movement, he figured out what she was doing.

"There are two more sentinels doing a flyover right now; if there are a few of those things that we didn't kill, they'll catch them," the youngest brother explained. Despite his exhaustion, he suddenly looked very concerned. "The others? Did everybody make it?"

Issinia was about to nod before she stopped herself. "Shari was shot in the stomach, severely, but Mister Montanha is devoting all of his attention to healing her while Narrus keeps watch." For a brief second, she paused, though not due to sadness. "Kirana didn't make it."

The very slightest hint of guilt pricked at the corner of Navarion's eye before it disappeared, and the oldest brother nodded solemnly. The six of them all stood in a quiet circle for a moment, the full extent of their collective fatigue finally hitting them once it seemed like it was over. There wasn't much time to rest, however, before one of the sentinels walked over to them.

"Greetings," the stoic woman said formally. "I've been told that you're all guests at the lodge of retired General Mishrana."

"That would be correct, sentinel; I'm her son," Uniol said,mate point forward wearily.

Nodding slowly, the sentinel extended both hands and motioned for the group to follow her. "Please, before we let you go...please take us for a survey of every site where conflict occurred. We need to confirm that this infestation has finally been ended...when we can do so, I promise that your efforts will be recognized."

Glad not so much at the recognition as at the fact that the ordeal was over, the group took one last collective deep breath and pressed onward. There were only a few hours left before dawn, and they'd have a lot of sleeping to catch up on.


	20. Uniol 2

A/N: for story reasons, we're switching back to Uniol for the last one here.

Despite the fact that dawn was approaching, all five sentinels had insisted on remaining at the lodge until they were absolutely sure that all survivors had been accounted for. After having confirmed that all of the withered elves had indeed been exterminated, the servicewomen felt safe enough to leave their hippogriffs huddled together outside, resting in a feathery pile as the snowstorm thankfully died down. The atrium became the locus of activity as loose ends were tied, and Uniol found himself taking the ultimate test in playing the host as he tried to provide food and drinks for his exhausted friends, in laws and five sentinels.

Sharimara was sound asleep on the cushions, her wound healed but the sleep spell in effect and likely pushing her to remain glued to that spot for many hours to come. Regardless of the professionalism of the job, the unit's designated field medic insisted in inspecting Sharimara herself before agreeing to write in the report that all wounded survivors had been properly healed. Mister Montanha sat on the opposite cushion, munching on an entire bowl full of jelly beans that Uniol had given him and looking rather pleased with himself after the flawless cleansing of intestinal bacteria from Sharimara's surrounding tissue.

Insisting on remaining with the sentinels and answering any and all questions promptly so they could just go, Uniol knelt down next to Mister Montanha as they finished their casualty report which included minute details of how the dried blood on Sharimara's unscarred midriff looked. Growing a bit bored due to the slow speed of the lowest ranking sentinel's handwriting, he turned to the white furred tauren next to him.

"Thanks, Mister Montanha. You've helped my family for decades, but this is really something else."

Barely even looking up from the bowl, the bovine man just grunted his reply. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Welcome. Great."

"Uh...can I ask you a question, by the way?"

"Huh? Yeah, whatever, I guess."

Uniol leaned a little bit closer, causing the tauren spirit walker to visibly bristle. "Can you truly cure cancer?" he asked in a low voice.

Although Uniol didn't know the definition of hackles, he assumed that Mister Montanha's had raised based on the furry man's reaction. "Not for free," he replied gruffly.

"Ah, I see-"

"I have the right to compensation for my ability to grant people a second chance in life."

"Yes, I understand-"

"Why should I allow myself to be exploited? My talent is one I could hide if I chose to do so. Who's business is it if I ask the families of the afflicted to travel to Lordaeron and Pandaria for rare herbs on quests before I agree to save their loved ones?"

"Right. I get it."

"Our tribes roam free, you see; we aren't used to being under the control of others. But freedom of control requires one to have money! Earning a living!"

"Well anyway, I think I need to go check on the others now-"

"You're not a follower of that Oronil fellow in Silvermoon, are you?" Mister Montanha asked suspiciously, completely ungrateful for the generous bounty of jelly beans in his lap.

"Son of Mishrana, we need the exact names of the fallen," the highest ranking of the five sentinels asked.

"Thank the goddess!" he replied while escaping the political debate with the ornery bull man. The sentinel shot him a confused look due to his enthusiasm for discussing the dead, and he quickly tried to look a little bit more somber. "We're devastated to lose our three friends. Jalfaren Icepillar was from the Stonetalon Mountains, from a highborne family there."

"They're well known...informing them won't be fun. And the two Sindorei?"

"Henaia Heatseeker and Thelios Firestarter. My wife's cousin met them at a mercenary camp in the Zoram Strand. Unfortunately, we don't know much else about them."

"There's only one mercenary camp there, and we regulate it; records in their next of kin are bound to be available," the woman replied while scribbling information down on a report form she kept stuffed in her rucksack. "Alright, we just need to take a statement from Trainee Priestess Hearthglen regarding the loss of the young Kaldorei from Stonetalon," the sentinel said while tilting her head toward Issinia, who was sitting on the windowsill and talking to Narrus as he removed the heavier portions of his armor.

"By all means, sentinel," Uniol replied, nodding as the woman took her leave.

Fortunately for him, Mister Montanha was more interested in devouring the jelly beans than in continuing the political debate, and quickly lost interest in all of those around him. Standing and glancing around, Uniol was glad to find that the rest of his family and friends were doing...well, about as well as could be expected.

Sitting on a cushion that was to the left of Sharimara's sleeping form, Selia and Tiondel looked as if they were soon about to follow. Dropping eyelids marked their faces, and as much as the entire family didn't get along with Selia, she had proven herself to be a reliable person when the going got tough. Uniol had a newfound respect for the women, even if he did still feel - just like the others did - that she and Tiondel weren't right for each other.

Off to one side, Navarion sat on a proper chair and sulked. Uniol had noticed his cousin in law having conversations with Kirana separate from the others, and assumed that the woman's passing must have stung him. Not wanting to leave the crestfallen relative on his own, Uniol brushed the breadcrumbs off of his shirt (he'd rushed to serve everyone finger food once they'd all arrived at the lodge) and walked over to have a few words.

"Hey man," Uniol said, trying to appear as casual and noninvasive as possible. "You alright?"

Fiddling with the girlish bracelet in his wrist, Navarion didn't even bother looking up. "Yeah, psh...I mean. Yeah, I'll be fine," he mumbled in response.

"Are you sure? You don't need to talk about anything?"

Navarion just paused in his fiddling, his gaze fixated on the floor. "No, I mean...not really. Things are fine. It's just...it's hard for all of us. You guys just as much as me."

When he didn't elaborate but didn't change the subject or brush the conversation away, Uniol assumed his behavior to be an indication that he wouldn't mind talking about what had happened. "There was nothing any of us could do, either way," Uniol sighed while also staring at the floor. "Issa is a true warrior of the night; had it been possible for Kirana to be saved on the edge of that cliff, then Issa would have been the one to do so," he surmised out loud.

"Yeah...yeah...I guess that's it. But it happened...why her? Why on this weekend, and not any other period in her life?" Navarion asked rhetorically, his expression one of dismay. "I feel like every woman I allow to get close to me ends up either hurt or dead."

"Well, whether they end up hurt or not is partially under your control and partially not," Uniol replied. He wasn't one to give advice on women, and he was careful in choosing his language so as not to sound patronizing. "But Kirana's death was not in anybody's control here. It isn't your fault, nor is the death of anybody else unless you had the opportunity to save them yourself and didn't take it."

Taking a deep breath, Navarion seemed like he understood but didn't entirely agree. " guess..." he sighed again, the melancholy wafting up off of him.

While they chatted for another minute or so, Uniol noticed that two of the five sentinels had surreptitiously stationed themselves in front of them both. The two armored fighters were leaning against the wall, practically posing as they also chatted and occasionally checked out Navarion from the corners of their eyes. The man had that effect on certain women, especially those form the east coast. Although Uniol agreed with the family in rebuking Navarion's occasionally lascivious behavior, he did think a bit of a harmless chat might do a man like that some good. Taking his leave, Uniol moved to walk away, leaving the two sentinels to continue competing for the attention of the mixed man sporting an indigo mohawk.

Finally emerging from the kitchen where they'd prepared the finger food, Corrianna looked about ready to collapse, completely exhausted and unrested. Uniol certainly couldn't blame her; they'd hardly slept for an hour before Tiondel woke them up at the sound of Henaia's passing. The two of them looked at each other with sleepy eyes before striding over to each other and meeting halfway. A tree trunk functioning as a pillar provided support, and the two of them watched all the others wearily as they remained quieter than everybody there.

"I'm...sorry," he sighed, smiling contritely.

Her expression, however, was one of pure shock and confusion, mixed in with a bit of affection as her brow furrowed at him. She reached up and swept away a bit of his matted down hair away from his face. "What on Azeroth for?" she asked, legitimately clueless.

"For all this," he sighed while pointing to Sharimara sleeping, the field medic filling out a report and Navarion failing to respond to the signals from the two sentinels. "I was so excited to host everybody...this was supposed to be a fun weekend getaway for us all."

"Well...I can't say we managed to relax so far," she chortled, good natured and even tempered as always. "And we lost some innocent people. Elune guide them and bless us, it's a tragedy what happened. But the rest of us are still here, we still have each other...and we still have - need - this time to recouperate."

A sappy smile was shared between them, and after a moment they hugged. Normally such open displays of affection would be frowned upon in two families as conservative as theirs, but after what they'd gone through, he knew they deserved it. Pulling away from her momentarily, he grinned and smoothed her black hair down with his hand.

"What?" she asked suspiciously.

"I know our honeymoon was ruined by bad plumbing, and this kind of went sour real early on...but there's nothing to stop us from trying for a third time this spring."

Corrianna early blushed as she grinned wide and looked down. "Well...if you insist," she replied coyly.

That spring...

Beach goers ran across the shoreline at Ethel Rethor, screaming hysterically as they ran this way and that in an attempt to escape. The enraged yogurt elementals didn't stop coming, ruining everybody's hair and clothes as they doused everyone in their dairy based projectiles.

Frazzled and smelling of buttermilk, Uniol and Corrianna both hid behind a sand dune, the horror of the sloppy yet delicious elemental beings raging behind them. Uniol picked a chunk of crushed blueberry out from behind his ear and flicked it on the ground.

"Fourth honeymoon attempt next year?" he panted, nearly breaking out into laughter as he asked despite the fact that they had just been subjected to the most bizarre (though not actually dangerous) situation of their lives.

Another tourist ran by, her legs pumping as she nearly slipped while running away from a chocolatey horror. Corrianna looked up at him, her eyes wide and her countenance fatigued but her lip pulled into the slightest smile.

"Four attempt next year," she agreed.

A/N: and so ends my winter blowout special for my two main Warcraft families. It was fun to write and plan, and it is my hope that it was at least somewhat fun to read. For longtime readers, I hope this was a good amalgamation of the characters you know. For first time readers, thank you so much for giving my story a shot!

Up next, we have two more stories I'll start posting in a week or two: "Empathy," a shorter one featuring Issinia, and "Between Two Worlds," the second story featuring Navarion. Like all my other stories, you do NOT have to read anything else as a prerequisite and could theoretically just jump right into them. Whatever you do, I wish you all the best!


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